Bright Young Witches and the Merry Dead

by Beth Byers

  Bright Young Witches & the Merry Dead

  A Bright Young Witches Historical Adventure

  Beth Byers

  Contents

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Also By Beth Byers

  Summary

  December 1922

  It's the first holiday away from home for the Wode sisters, and they're all homesick. All too soon, they realize they aren't the only ones who are restless.

  It's time to discover why the dead are antsy, and what they’re going to do about it. Will Ariadne, Circe, and Echo discover what is wrong? And will they be able to somehow solve the problem and fix their holiday spirits? Or, will they give up and go home?

  Join the Wode as they rise and embrace just who and what they are in this newest holiday historical mystery adventure.

  Chapter 1

  ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE

  Ariadne Eudora Wisteria Wode was the eldest of the eldest of the eldest of the Wodes. That had been true when she was in the United States, but the Wodes in the United States were a relatively small witch family. They had their place of power, and they’d cultivated it over the course of two centuries.

  Ari had been proud of what they’d done and who she was until she walked into the Wode House in London and realized what was possible with an even older house. Becoming the eldest of the eldest of the eldest of the English Wodes hadn’t been something she’d known was a possibility until the Wode House in London had opened for her.

  What was truly mind-boggling to Ari was the country estate’s potential for magic. The country property had been owned by their family almost since William the Conqueror had crossed the English Channel. It must be swimming in magic.

  Being the steward of all that magic did not change the fact that she was also an older sister. Ari put her hands on her hips as she stared down at her youngest sister. Medea’s arms were folded across her chest and her chin had the stubborn tilt that declared the battle would go her way or it would be endless.

  Ari glanced over Medea’s trunk, lifting her brow. “You’ve only got one dress in your trunk, poppet.”

  “But I needed more room for books.”

  Ari’s lips twitched and she had to turn away to hide her grin. When she had control, she turned back and faced Medea. As Ari lifted a brow, Medea’s frown deepened but she dropped her crossed arms.

  Ari squatted next to the trunk to look through her sister’s things. The bottom of the trunk was thick with books and topped by Medea’s china doll wrapped in her favorite blanket, her toy tea set, her personal spell book and journal, her drawing supplies, and one dress.

  “You don’t have underthings or a nightgown,” Ari said, “or the dress I bought you for Christmas dinner.”

  “But I need my books.”

  “A feeling I can respect,” Ari said, “but it’s not all right to be rude to Faith.”

  Medea’s face filled with shame and she turned to the nanny, running across the floor and throwing herself at Faith’s legs, hugging her tight.

  Faith also had her arms crossed over her chest and a frustrated expression on her face, but when Medea wrapped Faith up in her arms, the nanny’s face softened and she ran her fingers over Medea’s hair. Ariadne met Faith’s dark chocolate eyes, noting the flush of irritation on her chocolate skin and winced. “I am guessing you laid things out for her to pack?”

  Faith nodded. Ari turned until she found the pile. The clothes were tossed to the side, haphazardly buried under the books that Medea hadn’t been able to fit into her trunk.

  “Why don’t we get a second trunk for her?” Ari sighed. “We don’t have a time frame for exactly when we’ll return, so an excess of books is understandable, I think. Pack her clothes and Cassiopeia’s in the new trunk, and we’ll let Cassie pack her toys and books as well.”

  Ari took Faith’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry,” Ari mouthed, after letting Medea have her way.

  Faith shook her head at the happy Medea, who was going through her books again. The journey would start in the morning and Ariadne needed to make sure her other sisters had what they needed. She checked in on Circe, who was fully prepared to leave, and Echo, who was in the garden. Echo had packed the trunk of their witch supplies and Circe had packed the books they were bringing with them.

  “How are you feeling?” Ari asked Circe, knowing it was unwise.

  “I’m fine now, Ari,” Circe replied with an edge of exasperation.

  She’d been stricken by ghosts and their relationship was still recovering. Behind all that ghost-induced sourness and venom was true feeling. Circe didn’t love that their mother had left the little girls to Ari’s care. Circe didn’t love that Ari was the eldest of the eldest, and Circe wanted to be in love. In dragging Circe from their hometown, Ari had taken Circe from her love.

  Had the lover been a fiend who deserved to be left? Yes. But it didn’t change the fact that Circe was mourning what she’d thought she’d had—and somehow part of the blame was Ari’s.

  “I love you, Circe,” Ari said, because there was nothing else to say.

  She left the room before her presence irritated Circe past a level that they could handle and ruined their Christmas before it even started. She found her second youngest sister, Cassiopeia, sitting in the window seat of Ari’s bedroom, staring out at the rain.

  “I wish we were going home for Christmas,” Cassiopeia said as soon as Ari entered, even though she didn’t turn from the window. “We’d have snow by now. We might have been able to take a sleigh ride. Or we might have been able to build a snow fort. We could have had cocoa by the fire like you said Mama always did after you played in the snow when you were little like me. We could have made snow angels, and we missed Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie and seeing Aunt Beatrix.”

  “I’m sorry we missed Thanksgiving,” Ari said, kneeling next to Cassiopeia. “We should have had it here. I should have been better about remembering and making sure. I didn’t even think—”

  Cassiopeia shook her head, her gaze still fixed on the rain. “I’m sad, Ari. I want to go home.”

  Ari’s mouth twisted and she pulled out her pentacle necklace. She’d crafted a spell into the back of it to know when they were out of danger at home, and nothing had changed. “Darling, it isn’t safe there yet.”

  Cassiopeia’s face soured, “I want to light candles for Mama.”

  “I know, baby,” Ari said. She wanted to light candles for her mother as well. She wanted to make their pecan pie and pumpkin pies. She wanted to light the candelabra on the mantle over the fire and in all the little corners. At home, with all the corners they’d created for candlesticks, they’d have been surrounded by flickering witch candles that they’d created with magic and intent, and their house would have been filled with peace and magic.

  “Will it be the same here?” Cassiopeia asked. “Will it even be Christmas?”

  Ari frowned as she struggled to find the words.

  “I don’t think it’ll be the same,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t be good.”

  Ari, too, wanted to be in their candlelit parlor while Circe played carols on their piano. Circe was the only siren witch in their family, but they’d have sung together anyway. Ari wanted to stuff stockings for her sisters and creep through the house to make sure that Santa and his elves had stopped by.

  She wanted to see their friends and carol with their neighbors and go to the special church service and walk through the town that her family had carved out o
f the wilderness. Instead, Ari was taking her sisters into the English countryside, to a house she had never seen, to have a Christmas festival with relatives she had never met and introduce herself as the one the magic had selected as the eldest of the eldest. As if it wasn’t awkward enough, she and her sisters would be mourning the American version of their holiday and wondering if Ari being the Wode would prevent them from ever having that again. Ari had to slap a smile on her face and pretend everything was fine when she wanted to go home as badly as her younger sisters.

  Ari put on that brave happy smile for her little sister and said, “Darling Cassiopeia, we’ll make new traditions and keep what we can. It’ll be a Christmas to remember regardless of where we are because we’ll be together.”

  Ari smile faltered when Cassiopeia’s face didn’t brighten, and she leaned down and kissed her sister’s forehead, hoping that it would be sufficient to brighten her spirits. Ari opened her closet where her few dresses accentuated the size of the closet and how extravagant Wode House was and how poorly suited Ariadne was to be the mistress.

  She glanced around her room with that thought in her mind. It was massive in a way that would be comfortable only for a princess. She felt like she was interloping every time she realized this was her bedroom. An incredible artist and witch had painted the night sky overhead. The constellations whispered magic to Ari and the dark wood floors whispered safety.

  Her bedroom had a step down to the bed in the oversized room, and the bed itself felt as though it could be a field for baseball. The private bath off the bedroom had a—to call it bathtub was a misnomer—it was a small pool, heated and cleaned by magic. It was large enough that she and all her sisters could soak in it, and they had put on their bathing costumes and lingered in it, using up the previous owner’s supply of lavender bath salts.

  The room was so…so…so not Ariadne. If she weren’t the eldest of the eldest, she’d have been dreaming of a small house, a husband, and children. Now, however, with the burden of being the Wode along with her little sisters to raise, Ariadne mostly felt as though she were an imposter play-acting at being the head of an ancient witch family. It was as though her skin didn’t fit.

  The only place within Wode House she felt truly comfortable was in the garden. Even from her bedroom, she could feel the anxiety of the garden about being left alone again, so she returned to it. She went directly to the pentacle at the very center of the garden and meditated long into the night, adjusting the spells on the garden and house until they were safe to leave.

  When Ariadne finally returned to her bedroom, everyone else had long since been sleeping, and she still had packing to do. By the time she fell into bed, it was nearly time to get up.

  Rather than taking the train to the country house, Ari had purchased an auto and motored to the house herself. Her auto was filled with the five sisters. The eldest was Ariadne, who was followed by Circe, Echo, Cassiopeia, and then Medea. They were crammed in the auto with their friend and nanny, Faith, their cats, and their luggage. They didn’t have a map, but they had a spell that directed them through the streets and over the hills of England.

  “It’s so pretty,” Cassiopeia breathed as they went past verdant rolling hills and ancient trees that started the Lake Country.

  “Do you feel better, poppet?” Circe asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cassiopeia said. “It’s pretty, but I still wish it were the lane to our house at home.”

  “So do I,” Echo said, reaching out to take Cassiopeia’s hand, even though she had to twist around to face the backseat. “Ari, are we going to end up in some cobweb strewn house that no one has stepped foot in for half a century?”

  “No,” Ariadne assured them. “Apparently it opened up when the London house did. There was a caretaker for the grounds, and Mr. Blacke helped hire laborers to put the house in order and send for those who had been taken care of by the previous Wode and give them a place to stay again. Or he said he would. I guess there were a few members of the family who were being helped up until Delilah Wode died and the magic shut down the houses on the family.”

  “So they’ll be living there when we get there?” Echo didn’t sound any happier about it than Ari was. Ari didn’t begrudge those people returning home, she just wished they’d have a private place for her and her sisters. To squabble and fight in peace. She snorted at the thought and glanced back at Circe, who really did look better.

  It had taken months, but Circe’s skin was porcelain again. Her eyes were bright. Her dark hair was shiny, and the petulance was the same level Ari shared about going to the country house instead of America.

  Ari shook her head, glancing back once again before she returned her exhausted eyes to the road. She’d taken an energy potion to get through the day but that was failing her, and she felt as though she’d put sand in her eyes.

  “I don’t know. They could be,” Ariadne finally admitted. “They were invited to return if they wanted to. It isn’t really our home, is it? It’s their home and we’re the interlopers.”

  “It’s your home now,” Circe said gently. “I know you don’t feel like it’s your place, but the home chose you. Not them.”

  And with that one statement, Circe gave Ari the gift she’d wanted for Christmas. It wasn’t the house, it was the return of Circe as her sister.

  Ari teared up and Echo let go of Cassiopeia to take hold of Ari’s hand. They let the silence fall until Echo sighed. She was followed by Circe, Cassiopeia, and Medea with a sniffle from Ari. It wasn’t going to be the Christmas they’d always experienced, but Ari reminded herself—it would be up to them to make it the Christmas they wanted.

  Chapter 2

  ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE

  The magic of the Wode country house hit Ari like a sledgehammer to the chest. She didn't so much stop the car as let off the gas and roll out of the automobile. Echo gasped and slid over to the driver seat. Ari stumbled to the bushes near the drive and retched into the green.

  The magic of the house was already echoing in her head. She continued to vomit with the strength of it. She felt a hand on her back and a low humming filled her ear. Slowly, wiping the back of hand over her mouth, Ari straightened to face her sister.

  Their gazes met and Circe said, “I used to want to be you.”

  “Why?” Ariadne asked, holding her temples as if it could block the magic. It didn’t help.

  “Look at this place,” Circe said, shaking her head. “But look at you. Oh darling, you don’t look well.”

  Ari choked out a reply through her desert-dry mouth. “Do you feel it?”

  “Perhaps we’re at the wrong place?”

  Ari shook her head, covering her ears instead, though she knew it would do no good. One couldn’t block out magic with hands over her ears. Circe leaned down and plucked a leaf from the bush and then mixed it with the dirt of the property. She swirled them together with water from the jar in the auto and then drew a rune on Ari’s forehead.

  “What was that?”

  “Peace and quiet,” Circe replied. “My intent was to mute what you’re feeling.”

  “Thank you,” Ari breathed. Together the two sisters gaped in shock at the house. No, not a house. It was a mansion. More than a mansion. A…an…estate. “We don’t belong here.”

  “The magic says otherwise,” Circe replied.

  Ari frowned as she stared at the house. She didn’t belong here. Nature witch or not, this place did not fit who she was. The house had multiple peaks. Not one. It had five. She didn’t even know what they were called, but there was a center tower that looked to be both a bell and a clock. There were two much shorter peaks on either side of the center tower and then two taller peaks on each end. The end peaks had steeples. Who put steeples on a house?

  The house-mansion-thing was made of red brick, which was the only feature that seemed familiar. Aunt Beatrix had a house with red brick. Her home only had one peak, but it had red brick.

  A long lane led up
to the house. It had ancient oak trees on either side of the drive, shading the lane with the spiny fingers of winter-time trees without leaves.

  “How many bedrooms do you think it has?” Circe breathed, mouth dropped.

  “I think it has more parlors than the bedrooms of our house at home.”

  “It probably has a billiards room,” Circe said. “And oh! A music room.”

  “A ballroom.” Ari pressed her fingers to her temples. The silence from the rune was helpful, but there was still the pressure of magic. It felt as though the magic of the estate was at a bursting point. She frowned as she returned to the auto. She couldn’t hear or sense the “Ariadne, Ariadne, Ariadne,” but she knew the magic was saying it, calling it, maybe spelling it.

  When she returned to the auto, Echo was still in the driver’s seat, and Ariadne gratefully curled up on the passenger seat while the magic beat at her. It took a mere few feet of the auto moving before she was aware of anything but the pressure of the power of the Wode House.

  CIRCE EUTERPE MAGNOLIA WODE

  Circe hopped out of the auto the moment that Echo stopped it. She ran up the steps of the house, ignoring the majestic beauty, and clanged the massive bell before daring to push the door open and let herself in.

  “Hello! Hello! We need some help here.”

  Several familiar faces appeared in the double doorways of the nearby rooms.

  “It’s Ari,” Circe said, ignoring the flash of shame in seeing their faces. She’d caused a great deal of heartache when possessed. Circe directed her comment to Lucian Blacke. “I think the magic is crushing her.”