Something Wicked

by Robin Moray

  Chapter 15

  Peter woke to the smell of pancakes and the sound of arguing. Someone was loudly denouncing peanut butter as an abomination, to the vocal disgust of someone else, and a third voice, this one peevish, was demanding they both shut up.

  He opened his eyes. He was lying under a quilted blanket on a sofa, it seemed, in a small parlour. Opposite him a round window in a whitewashed wall opened out onto a riotously thriving garden; it was daylight, quite bright, perhaps the same day or early the next day. There were a few small tables scattered about the room, each with a lace doily and a number of knick-knacks arranged upon it, several sets of shelves recessed into the walls and packed with old books. Pictures on the walls showed a number of similarly featured people, clearly related to one another, some photographs, some lithographs, some daguerreotypes, some painted portraits. It was all very homey and comfortable, and Peter was utterly bewildered by it.

  He pushed the quilt aside and sat up, wincing. Lord, how he ached. But … well. He hadn't expected to still be alive. Aches and scrapes and bruises seemed a small price to pay.

  The arguing had dissolved into mockery, and some laughter, and someone loudly defending eggs and maple syrup. Then something smashed.

  "Kevin! Watch your gigantic elbows."

  "Sorry! It was an accident."

  "Shhhhh, will you both? Please?"

  Peter got carefully to his feet. Someone had taken off his shoes. It was a little disconcerting. Still, it wasn't nearly as disconcerting as realising that the quilt he'd pushed away was folding itself up, only to drape neatly over the arm of the couch. The cushions he'd dislodged were likewise tugged back into place, as if by an invisible and fastidious hand.

  It didn't feel like magic, or rather it didn't feel like bad magic. Peter was beginning to understand that there was a difference between the two, one he should learn to appreciate. He cleared his throat. "Thank-you," he said quietly, not feeling quite as ridiculous as perhaps he should.

  He turned into the hall, and hesitated in the archway to the kitchen.

  It was cluttered but endearingly domestic. A broad old-fashioned table took up most of the space, and a heavy cast-iron range the rest of it. There were copper pots hanging from a rack along one wall and, conspicuously, a particularly large deep-bottomed kettle that looked more like a cauldron than anything he had ever seen with his own eyes.

  There they all were: the boy sitting at the table, his face shiny with butter as he stuffed it full of pancakes; the woman squeezing oranges by hand with an old-fashioned juice-press, the dark cloud of her hair tied back with a bright scarf; the man flipping pancakes at the griddle, looking thoroughly put-upon by everything. And there was Kevin, hunched over on the floor with dustpan and broom in hand, sweeping up the remains of a broken glass.

  It was Kevin who looked up, Kevin who saw him first. He just stared for a moment, and then he said, "Peter," and the others stopped what they were doing to stare too.

  Good Lord, they all looked like he'd caught them stealing apples from his yard. He cleared his throat. "Good day." He didn't know what else to say; his manners deserted him in the face of the hitherto unknown situation of waking up on the sofa of people who had every right to believe he had wanted to burn them at the stake. "Please forgive me, I seem to have misplaced my shoes."

  It made Kevin laugh, at least, and then he was tipping the broken glass into a bin, setting aside his dustpan and broom to offer Peter a plate. "No shoes inside. Nanna's rules. You hungry?"

  Peter took it, and the chair Kevin pulled out for him. "Please, if it's no trouble."

  Kevin caught his shoulder, squeezed very lightly, and the brush of his magic was so welcome it was like coming up for air. "There's loads. Unless you want bacon on yours—Artie's refusing to cook any."

  "There's plenty of preserves," the man at the griddle chided fussily. "Finish off the loganberries."

  "But there's no ice cream," Kevin argued.

  "Then go to the shops."

  "But," and Kevin glanced at Peter before turning his head away as though suddenly embarrassed. "Fine. I'll go if anyone else wants it."

  The woman set a glass of juice down in front of the boy at the table, and smiled at Peter over his head. "Pancake toppings are very serious business in our family," she said in a friendly tone of voice that absolutely failed to disguise the wary set of her eyes. "If you've any unusual preferences you'd best speak up."

  "Oh, no," Peter reassured her. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I'm happy with just lemon and sugar."

  The all three Mallorys stared with such identical horrified looks that Peter wondered if he had just that moment sprouted horns.

  "Right," Kevin said firmly. "Lemons," and he disappeared out the back door, returning shortly with his hands full of fresh ripe citrus.

  Eventually, Kevin introduced Peter to his sister and his brother, and then, hesitantly, to the quiet boy still busily inhaling pancakes, who glanced up only to examine Peter with those solemn nearly-black eyes of his when Kevin said his name.

  "Damon?" Peter repeated.

  The boy rolled his eyes, looking disgusted. "Dae-won. 'Damon' was my slave name."

  Peter had no idea what to make of that. "My mistake. Please, forgive me."

  Daewon eyed him narrowly over his juice, but eventually shrugged in the thoroughly dismissive way teenagers had. "It's fine."

  When they had all sated themselves with pancakes and juice and—ah, heavenly—coffee, Artemis collected the dishes and set them on the sink before turning to lean up against it and frown.

  "Well then. I suppose we can go home, now we know we're not being hunted."

  Bella touched his arm. "Artie, don't."

  "No, I think I should."

  Peter winced. "If I may, I was never hunting you."

  "No. But you were hunting Daewon." Behind him, Peter noticed the sink was filling itself; several plates floated into it, clattering around against a scrubbing brush. He tried to ignore it.

  "I must disagree," Peter said calmly, not wanting to argue with a man who had just cooked him breakfast. "I was only ever hunting Cordelia. That I found anyone else was unintentional." He caught Daewon's eye, and nodded to him. "Please accept my apology. I didn't know whether or not you were a danger. I should have determined that first."

  Daewon lifted his chin, staring down the length of his nose. Then he shrugged. "Sorry I hit you with that branch."

  Kevin looked confused, but Peter just nodded again. "Accepted."

  There was a broad and uncomfortable silence, broken at length by Bella sighing gustily. "Well. Daewon, would you like a bath? I'm sure we can find some clean clothes for you, too."

  In the fuss over that, Peter took the opportunity to find his shoes and slip out into the garden. It was riotously pretty, herbs trailing over the edging of the garden beds, climbing roses wound affectionately around the trunks of fruit trees. Beyond the terrace there were vegetable gardens, more fruit trees, a chicken coop, a greenhouse. Peter walked down the path that meandered all the way from the back door to the far gate. He stopped there, leaning his hands on the fence, and looked out at the fields, the woods beyond, the hills beyond that.

  It was so peaceful, so beautiful, and Peter took a deep breath of clean air to clear his lungs and his head.

  A bird trilled at him nearby, fluttering like a flute. He wondered what it was, and then became aware that Kevin had come up behind him. He could sense Kevin there, this comforting presence at his back, and then he felt the brush of Kevin's breath on his neck.

  "Hey."

  "What bird is that, do you know?"

  "Meadowlark," Kevin said immediately. "He's just annoyed we're in his yard."

  "Oh? Do you know all the bird calls?"

  "No, just," and he shifted his feet as if embarrassed. "He's saying 'fuck off, jerks'. Um. Birds, you know. Sort of a side-effect of the whole 'witch' thing."

  Peter glanced at him, or at least he only meant to glance but once he had don
e so he could not look away. Kevin looked … worn, exhausted and shaky, and frazzled around the edges. He had a graze on his cheek, the tell-tale sheen of St John's Wort on his skin, and Peter could sense a disquiet in him, a jittery static in his essence—in his magic—that had not been there before.

  Peter lifted a hand, almost laid it on Kevin's shoulder before thinking better of it. "Are you all right?"

  "Yeah? Are you?"

  "Yes. I am. I have you to thank for that, I think." He frowned. "Though, I don't really remember or understand what happened."

  Kevin nodded, frowning. "Well. You tried to kill yourself. I'm still mad at you for that, by the way."

  There was, Peter felt, some distance between 'killing oneself' and 'sacrificing oneself' but he did not argue. "I didn't think there was another option."

  "I did." Kevin shook his head, and his mouth and eyes turned down with guilt. "But I ruined that plan by, you know," and he shrugged awkwardly, "screwing up my magic by being with you."

  "Don't blame yourself," Peter told him. "That's more my fault than yours."

  "No, it isn't. I knew, see. And I kept going back to you anyway because I didn't … I cared. But I didn't care enough. So it was my fault. Don't argue," he added, gone mulish in a way that ought not to be so endearing.

  "How could I dare to argue with you?" Peter said, and he considered tucking an arm around Kevin's waist, just to pull him a little closer, but lost his nerve.

  Kevin didn't blush, but the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth was just as good. "So. Um. So, Artie and Bella tried to, you know, contain Cordelia by themselves but they couldn't … Wait. Do you get how covens work?" He gave Peter a wary look, clearly torn. "You need three witches, because two witches sort of amplify each other, but three just … it's a lot more than three times the power, if that makes any sense. Even when one of them's, um, not very strong."

  Peter nodded. "I always wondered why it couldn't be four or more."

  "Yeah, maybe because it's hard enough finding three witches who agree on anything, let alone four," Kevin said, smirking. "I dunno. Reasons. Anyway, they couldn't do it by themselves, not the two of them. And then you just," and he took a deep breath before going on, "just jumped her. You were draining her but she … I don't think you get how strong she was. Not just her capacity, but I mean she was just really … really strong. She was bitter," he added, looking conflicted. "I think she actually believed she was in the right. But. She wasn't. I don't really feel sorry for her."

  Peter most certainly did not, but he kept the thought to himself. "Go on."

  "Okay. So, you were draining her but she just had too much magic and … I could feel you sort of," and he looked embarrassed, "fading. Like … washing away, under all that magic. And I remembered what you said, that it takes two hunters to finish a coven. And I thought." He shrugged, looking away. "I wanted to help you."

  "How? I don't understand how. To hunt witches, to drain them, you need to be—" 'Dry', Kevin called it once, a great yawning void thirsty for magic. "Damaged, like me. Witches can only consume it, like Cordelia. Or—forgive me, I'm not an expert. I should probably accept that everything I thought I knew about witchcraft is likely to be very wrong."

  "I dunno about that. All I did was link with you." Kevin bit his lip, glancing up, and his eyes caught the light and reflected it, green as moss, green as the sea. "I tried not to look at anything private when I did it, though, because … well. Not like I asked first."

  Peter didn't ask him what he had clearly seen anyway; he suspected he already knew. But if Kevin was too polite to bring it up then far be it from Peter to do so. "You brought me back from the brink."

  Kevin nodded, chewing his lip. "Didn't wanna lose you."

  It made Peter's heart clench in an exquisite sort of agony. He had to breathe in and then out again before he could compose himself enough to speak. "Thank-you." But then—"I must ask, though. What became of Cordelia?"

  And that made Kevin suddenly cagey. "Uh … they, you know. Trapped her in a mirror."

  "In a what?"

  "It's traditional." Kevin shrugged, not meeting Peter's eye. "Warlocks in mirrors. That's what you do with them."

  "But how did they manage that? If they could not do so alone and you, forgive me, could not link with them."

  Kevin sighed, still wouldn't look up, and ended up telling the story to Peter's collarbones.

  It seemed that Kevin's siblings had tried, and failed, to ensorcel Cordelia, but at the last moment Daewon had offered his assistance. Or, rather, had blundered his way into their link. Apparently his magic was a sufficiently close match that the link had held long enough to cast their spell. This seemed to be something of a sore point with Kevin, and Peter thought he understood why that was. In any case, Artemis and Bella had then insisted the boy come with them for a bath and breakfast, and had, Kevin muttered, been arguing in whispers about whether or not there was room in their house for one more.

  Because Daewon was alone. He'd told them he'd been living rough even before Cordelia murdered the rest of his coven—he hadn't explained why and everyone had been polite enough to leave it at that. So he was a solitary witch, with no friends, no family, a minor far from a home he, apparently, had no interest in going back to. And he was a match. Kevin admitted that it only made sense but he sounded miserable about it.

  "Anyway, you were dead to the world, so I figured … you don't mind, do you?" He did look up then, suddenly uncertain. "That I brought you back here? I mean, I know you're still a witch-hunter, but I figured … Cordelia's done. You're not going to hunt us, now." He didn't add, Are you? but Peter heard it all the same.

  "No. No, I have neither reason to nor any intention. There is … none of you are …" He had to pause to sort out his thoughts. How to say it and be certain it would be understood? "There's no corruption on you, any of you. I didn't know that was possible—always, with magic, the corruption was obvious to me, unmistakably so. I think … I may need to take some time to reevaluate everything I thought I knew about magic. And until then, I don't see how I can hunt anyone. But, in any case, you are none of you corrupt. I would do more harm than good to interfere."

  Kevin looked relieved. "And you're not mad at me for kidnapping you into a witch house full of witches?"

  "No," though he hesitated. "Is there … pardon me, is there a ghost in there? I saw … it was doing the washing-up."

  "Oh! No, that's just … Nanna's cottage, long story. She's not dead though, she just moved to the coast. Got an old-lady coven," and he made a face. "They're terrifying. They pinch your cheeks so hard."

  He fell silent then, looking down at his hands.

  "What now?" he said eventually, too quiet for Kevin, too uncertain.

  Peter wanted to haul him in, kiss him breathless and say, 'This, please,' but that would have been unfair of him. "I don't know," he said instead and immediately regretted it when Kevin pulled away, turning his face a fraction too slow to hide the disappointment in it.

  "Right," he said, and then—"Bella says you need to rest. Before, you know. Someone'll give you a lift back into town. But just take it easy, okay? Don't … don't tear anything open."

  And then he was gone, halfway up the footpath before Peter could come up with anything that might make him stay.

  He stood in the garden for nearly twenty minutes, trying to work out how to fix this, before giving up. He could feel Kevin up there in the house, felt drawn to seek him out. Maybe … if he just touched him and told him the truth, laid his heart bare, then … the worst thing that could happen would be that Kevin wanted nothing to do with him. In which case Peter would go back to the city, lick his wounds in the isolated loneliness of his sad apartment, and try not to berate himself too harshly for daydreaming of green eyes and a smile like the sun. But, if Kevin did not turn him away …

  When he went up, though, he couldn't find Kevin anywhere. He wasn't in the kitchen or the parlour, nor, Peter thought, behind the door he su
spected of being a laundry-slash-bathroom. He went gingerly upstairs, feeling like an intruder, but all the doors were open and Kevin wasn't in any of the rooms. He was here somewhere though, Peter was sure of it, and when he turned to go back down the stairs he was surprised to see Bella standing there, firmly in his way. He hadn't sensed her; the whole cottage was too flushed with magic for him to make out particularly much of anything specific. Except one thing.

  "Ah, I beg your pardon. I was looking for Kevin."

  "He thinks you're leaving," she said, leaning against the wall with her arms folded at her waist. He could sense her vast strength, the strength of tectonic plates, of ocean currents, of magma deep underground. It was bright, sparkling with health and wholesomeness, though there was an edge to it that Kevin's lacked, a ruthlessness of which Kevin seemed incapable. "He's mourning you already because he thinks you're going to leave him behind. Can't you feel it?"

  Peter was shocked. "How could I?"

  "He's spilling over with it, he's practically miasmic." She raised her eyebrows at him expectantly. "It's making everyone unhappy because he's unhappy. Because we love him. Even if," and there was a grief in her face so raw that it brought Peter's guilt to the surface again, "we can't link with him. He's still our brother." She fixed him with a stern look. "You ought to know because he's tuned to you now. Both of you, tuned to each other. If it wasn't such a disaster it'd be reason to celebrate. How can you not feel it?"

  "No," Peter said, when he had found his breath, "I meant, 'How could I leave him behind?'"

  Bella regarded him flatly. "I don't know."

  "I have no intention," Peter told her, and then checked himself. "But, this is not a conversation I should have with you. Please, I must speak with your brother. If he suffers as you say then I have an obligation to explain myself."

  She hesitated, and then smiled a smile that was so very Kevin that it took Peter's breath away. "He must love that. The way you talk. Like someone out of a book." Her grin broadened. "Kevin likes books. And cake. If you keep him in books and cake then I might consider giving you my blessing."