Moon Bound

by Leisl Leighton

  ‘Nope. Where you go, I go too, I’m afraid,’ he said in a doleful voice that made her want to start giggling again. She coughed to hide it, telling herself she was just punch drunk from tiredness, and marched even faster. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I thought that would be obvious given you’ve driven me over to Bron’s shop and now I’m walking to the front door.

  ‘Ah, good, we’re back to tetchy.’

  She threw him a look. He just smiled and said, ‘I meant, why are we going there? You barrelled out of the house so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to ask.’

  ‘No, you were too busy singing “Suicide Blonde” all the way over here to ask a question.’

  ‘I like that song. But now I am asking.’

  She turned to face him after stepping up onto the porch of the shop, the extra foot of height allowing her to look down at him a little. ‘I was doing some reading when I got home from my shift.

  ‘You should have gone to bed, given how exhausted you are.’

  She would have snapped at him again, except his tone this time wasn’t joking, but concerned. She swallowed down the lump that note of concern brought and said, ‘Yeah, well, I often can’t sleep after shifts like that. I need to wind down.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think wading through one of these would be the answer,’ he said, flicking his finger over the corner of the diary. ‘Wouldn’t a romance book or something light be better?’

  ‘If you liked that kind of thing.’ His brow raised at her bitter tone, but he didn’t make a quip, just crossed his arms in an attitude of listening. It made her uncomfortable. Shuffling back, she hugged the diary to her chest. ‘These diaries are fascinating, not to mention that aside from Skyping with Cordy, they’re our only way of learning anything about our powers now. So I have to read them.’

  Adam stepped up onto the porch, crowding into her space, and tapped the book. ‘What’s so important that made you come rushing over here, even though you should be in bed?’

  Shelley edged towards the front door, not liking how intimate he made that sound. ‘I found something that indicates Morrigan is still in Skye’s grandma’s body and won’t be able to change out of it until Yule.’

  ‘What?’ He grabbed her, stopping her backwards movement. ‘Jason needs to know this now.’

  She shrugged out of his hold. ‘Then you can go and tell him. I need to talk to Bron.’

  ‘I think it’s more important you tell Jason first. This could make all the difference to us catching the evil bitch, Morrigan.’

  ‘Maybe. Not that I think she’s going to be out and about any time soon. Her power will be depleted and she won’t be able to fully juice up until the next threefold flux of power.’

  ‘Which is when?’

  ‘Yule. There’ll be another full moon then. She’ll be able to pull on its power and the festival’s power of rebirth.’

  ‘That’s only two. You said a threefold flux. What’s the third?’

  ‘Sacrifice. She has to kill someone to take over their body. Somebody with a bit of their own power, but not too much, otherwise they might fight back.’

  ‘Like she did with Skye’s grandma?’

  Shelley nodded. That’s why I have to talk to Bron. She’s better at this kind of thing than I am.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  Shelley frowned at him. ‘The kind of thing where you have to tell your best friend that the woman who killed her grandma is still in her body and the only way she can get out of it is to kill someone else just before Christmas.’

  ‘Is anybody good at that kind of thing?’

  ‘Better than I am.’ Shelley turned from him and came to a stop as she noticed the sign on the door. ‘Closed? Why is Bron’s shop closed?’

  Adam shrugged and whistled. A moment later, Iain rounded the corner and bounded up onto the porch.

  Shelley pointed at the sign. ‘Why has Bron closed her shop?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me why, but Patrick was just telling me she’s had that sign up all week. She apparently called her assistant and told her to go on a holiday for a while.’

  ‘What?’

  Adam gripped her shoulder as she reached for the door handle. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Bron hasn’t closed her shop for one day since she inherited it from her grandma. If she was sick or on holiday, then she’s had Helen or one of her grandma’s old coven to run it for her. Something’s terribly wrong.’ She turned the handle and the door clicked and pushed open.

  ‘She was supposed to lock that,’ Iain grumbled.

  He and Adam moved forward as if to follow her, but Shelley held up her hand. ‘Stay here. It’s better I find out what’s going on first. If you come in she’ll put on her “happy” face and I’ll get nothing out of her.’ Adam opened his mouth to protest, but she put her hand on his chest, stopping him from moving past her. ‘Trust me on this, Adam. Despite how close you’ve become, I know her better than you do. If there’s a problem, I’ll call. You can both come in and do your hero thing then.’

  ‘I don’t do the hero thing,’ Adam protested.

  Shelley rolled her eyes at Iain, who grinned and gripped Adam’s shoulder.

  ‘Let the lady talk to her friend, Adam.’

  He subsided, but she heard the wolf in his voice as he said, ‘I’ll be right here.’

  Shelley nodded, stepped inside and closed the door behind her. A chill chased over her skin as she stepped over the threshold, followed by a terrible feeling of doubt, depression chasing hard on its heels. There was frustration too, and anxiety. Not good. Sounds were coming from the workroom to the right of the main shop. Then she heard a voice.

  ‘Oh, Goddess, I call on thee. Three times three times three times three, bring light to me, so mote it be.’

  A sensation, like static electricity, chased across Shelley’s skin and she hugged her arms to herself. ‘What is she doing?’ she whispered.

  ‘Trying to light the candle.’

  Shelley whipped around and saw a spirit manifest beside her. ‘Adeline!’ she said. ‘Do you have to creep up on me like that?’

  ‘I don’t creep, mo daor. I’m an apparition. So I appear.’ She gestured widely, like a magician at the end of a trick.

  Shelley rolled her eyes. There was little point having an argument with this particular spirit. Bron’s grandma had been stubborn in life and had become even more so in spirit. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here to help.’ She gestured at Shelley. ‘Do you mind?’

  Shelley’s eyes widened. ‘Yes I bloody well do mind. Help in some other way.’

  Adeline shook her head sadly and inched closer. ‘I would if it would do any good. But it’s too time consuming and tiring to go through you as an intermediary.’

  ‘Then I’ll let her hear you, like I did with Harrison.’

  Adeline stopped and seemed to consider for a moment before shaking her head. ‘No. I’m afraid this will be better.’

  Shelley stepped back and put her hands out as Adeline came closer, trying desperately to raise her barriers, but she was just too tired. ‘Please don’t. You know…’

  Adeline rushed at her and despite Shelley’s efforts, slipped through her blocks as if they were nothing. Shelley made a choking sound and shuddered, eyes rolling in her head. Her bag and the diary thumped to the ground and she swayed, catching herself on a nearby shelf before she fell to the floor. When she’d managed to steady herself, she stood upright and tried a few wobbling steps over to the nearest wall where a large mirror hung, reflecting the shop’s wares.

  She stared at her reflection, noting the strange black of her eyes, the slightly dishevelled tumble of blonde hair and the grimace on her lips. Pushing her hair back, she said with the distinctive Irish lilt of Adeline Kincaid, ‘I’m sorry, mo daor, but it’s the best way of reaching my Bronwyn. Perhaps she would listen to you, but this way is certain. I’ll give you back to yourself as soon as I’m done, and promise I won’t do it ag
ain for long while.’

  ‘Only because you won’t have the energy.’ Shelley’s voice was an echo in her head. ‘Don’t think I’m going to forgive you for this.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Adeline Kincaid said. ‘Now, let’s go help my granddaughter.’ She moved towards the workroom, a little unsteadily at first, but with each step she sank deeper into Shelley’s body and took firmer control until she was gliding along the floor with the same gentle grace she’d moved with in life. She opened the door.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Bloody hell! What’s wrong with this thing, Bluebelle? Why won’t it fucking work?’

  ‘Yelling at it won’t make it light, mo daor.’

  Bron jumped at the sound of her grandma’s amused voice, and looked up. ‘Shelley?’

  ‘No, mo daor. Shelley has stepped out for a moment.’

  Bron’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her friend, noting the differences in the way she held herself and her black eyes. ‘Did Shelley agree to “step out”?’

  Adeline made a little moue with her mouth. ‘She’ll come around.’

  ‘Grandma!’

  ‘Don’t you Grandma me. I’m here to help.’

  ‘I don’t need help. I should be able to do this. I’ve always been able to do this.’

  ‘That might be the case but … good Lord, what is that?’

  Bron looked down at the scrap of cat that had just jumped into her lap. ‘This is Bluebelle, my new familiar.’

  ‘I’m sure you could find a better familiar than that bedraggled beastie. It looks like it’s been mauled.’

  Bron picked Bluebelle up and nuzzled the scrawny cat’s tawny head. ‘I know. Poor thing. I found her out the back last week. She was crying. She was covered in blood and her back leg was hurt. She’d obviously been going it alone for a while too—she was so scrawny.’

  ‘Was? She still is scrawny.’

  ‘Oh, no. This is plump by comparison. I brought her in here and Helen helped me patch her up—she’s got an affinity with animals I think will be quite useful if I can just manage my own powers so I can train her up in hers. Anyway, I couldn’t just toss poor Bluebelle out once we’d patched her up and fed her. She needs someone to look after her. So I kept her.’

  ‘That doesn’t make her a familiar.’

  Bron turned Bluebelle around and peered in the cat’s peridot-coloured eyes. ‘I know. But there’s something about her that speaks to me. She’s a young cat too, so I know I can train her.’ She kissed Bluebelle between the eyes and settled her back on her lap, stroking her head. ‘The only thing is, she’s a bit frightened of the Were so I’ve been leaving her here rather than taking her home or to the packhouse. But she’ll get used to them soon.’

  Adeline pursed her lips. ‘Yes, well, that’s all very well, but why did you lie to your friends about going to work?’

  Bron’s hand stilled on Bluebelle’s head. ‘I didn’t lie. I just didn’t want to burden them with my problems.’

  ‘And closing up your shop and yelling at the candle to light is supposed to help this problem?’

  ‘Yes. No. I don’t know. All I know is, Skye—who has never learned anything about her powers—is taking control of hers. Shelley just doesn’t seem to have any kind of problem at all adjusting to the new powers and yet me, with all my years of study and practice in spells and borrowing power from the Goddess, can’t manage to do even the simplest of spells right since Samhain.’ She glared at the candle. ‘Yelling at it makes me feel better.’

  ‘Does it?’ Her grandma sat opposite her at the table, an unlit candle between them. Bron stuck her tongue out.

  Adeline Kincaid’s husky laugh rang around the room. Bluebelle jumped at the noise, her claws digging into Bron’s leg before she jumped down and limped across the floor to a patch of sun where she promptly laid down and closed her eyes. Rubbing her leg, Bron wished she could find peace so easily. Turning back to her grandmother she said, ‘I know Shelley is probably hating every moment of this, but I’m so glad you’re here.’

  Adeline squeezed Bron’s hand and then sat back. ‘So, mo daor, tell me, why are you trying to light a candle?’

  Bron blinked at her grandma and then frowned. ‘I thought if I started with the basics, it might help, but I can’t even do that right.’ She knocked the candle over in disgust.

  ‘Got out of bed on the wrong side this morning, did we?’ Adeline chuckled. ‘Let me fix that for you.’ Hands flat on the table, she stared at the candle. It wobbled and then righted itself, the wick flickering into blue and orange flame.

  Bron made a disgusted noise. ‘You’re dead and you can do that with ease. Why can’t I?’

  ‘Because you are not me. Don’t wish yourself other than you are, Bronwyn. It’s part of the reason why your powers aren’t working properly. Not to mention you came back to work before you were fully recovered from healing River. Shelley was right, by the way. That was foolish.’

  ‘I had clients needing to see me.’

  ‘And you always have to make other people happy, don’t you?’

  Bron crossed her arms over her chest and stared mutinously at her grandma. ‘I don’t have to make other people happy.’

  ‘Well, you made those clients you saw very happy.’

  Bron glared at her grandma as her lips twitched. ‘It’s not funny. Meg O’Brien has alopecia. Then overnight she got a full head of hair and thinks I’m a miracle worker. And I put Tracey Knight to sleep.’

  ‘She had insomnia. You cured it.’

  ‘I put her to sleep for a week. Her family were about to sue me when she woke up declaring she’d never felt so good. A newspaper reporter caught wind of it and I’ve had calls about my “miracle cures”.’ She snorted. ‘There’s no miracle. Just some screwed-up powers that I can’t control. The last few weeks since Samhain have been a nightmare. I can’t heal or help anyone else while I’m like this. Surely you see that’s true? What if I hurt rather than help next time?’

  Adeline squeezed her hands. ‘You’re a healer. You aren’t capable of hurting anyone.’

  Bron laughed bitterly. ‘Tell River that. I couldn’t touch him without it causing him pain. I had to go through an intermediary to heal him.’

  ‘I think that has more to do with his problem than your own.’

  ‘I’m not so sure of that.’ She shrugged and pulled her hands out of her grandma’s grasp, looking down at them, the chewed nails, the burn scar on her thumb she’d got when she’d not been careful in chemistry class in year twelve, the pink scar across her palm from when she’d cut there to use the blood magic on Skye on All Hallow’s Eve. She’d always trusted those hands, the power she’d harnessed from her Goddess that came through them when needed. Now … She shoved them between her legs. ‘If anyone would be used to Skye’s power, it would be River, and yet now it’s in me, it doesn’t seem to work right even on him.’

  ‘As long as you think of your new power as “Skye’s power”, you will have trouble with it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Adeline spread her hand. ‘Do you still think of this shop as mine?’

  Bron looked around her at the workroom full of stills and shelves of spices and roots and herbs. ‘No. You are here in everything I do and everything I’ve learned, but you left the shop to me when you passed on. I worked hard to expand it, to make a name for myself. It’s mine.’

  ‘And this is how you must think of the power Skye shared with you. Now you have ownership of it, you can’t give it back. Now it’s in you, it’s changed and won’t recognise her as master. It wants to recognise you, if you would only let it.’

  Bron scratched at her brow as she took in her grandma’s words. ‘You think I’m pushing Skye’s power away?’

  ‘Yes. If you kept calling this shop “my grandma’s shop”, do you think it would ever come to feel like yours?’

  ‘That’s not the same thing. I spent years studying what I needed to run this business successfully. I didn’t do anythin
g to gain a portion of Skye’s power.’

  Adeline pressed her lips together, leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. ‘I think Skye and the pack would have something different to say about that. You and Shelley worked an incredibly difficult and dangerous piece of magic that night that could have backfired on you in horrifying ways. And yet you did it, to save them. Your willingness to do what must be done earned you this new power. It’s yours to use at will if only you would accept the change this makes to the way you think everything must be done.’

  ‘I … That’s not …’

  ‘Don’t choke on your words, mo daor. Spit them out.’

  Bron pressed her lips together, trying not to swear. She loved her grandma and valued her thoughts and opinions, but she could also be the most exasperating person Bron knew—alive or dead. She took a deep breath and tried again. ‘I don’t mind change. I made the biggest change of my life when I followed you into this business rather than doing what Mother and Father required.’

  ‘I know you did, and that was very laudable, but then you stopped. On the outside it might look like you shift and change with the flow, but inside, your heart and soul haven’t moved on from my death. They still fear change.’ She cupped Bron’s face in her hands. ‘This is an opportunity. You’ve been given a gift. It’s up to you to stop your hands from shaking and open the gift. Only once you’ve opened it can you learn to use it.’

  Hurt by her grandma’s words, Bron pouted. ‘That’s not true. I’m the one who’s open to these things. I want to use it.’

  ‘But you fear it and that stops you from embracing it.’

  ‘I don’t fear it. Why should I fear it?’

  ‘Because it’s expanding you, making you into something more, something outside your knowledge. And that unknown frightens the hell out of you.’

  Bron’s nostrils flared, the muscles around her mouth and eyes pinched as she tried to hold back the tears. ‘You’re talking about this power like it’s a fairy tale.’

  ‘Now you sound like your mother.’

  Bron jerked at the admonishment. ‘I’m nothing like my mother.’