A Bundle of Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Sets Book 1)

by Olivia Hardin

  He approached his dad and stood there a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other a few times. Putting his little hands on Beck’s shoulders, he leaned in to whisper into his ear. “Could I put out my old nightlight? Just for tonight?”

  “Sure.” Beck ruffled his son’s hair. “Just for tonight. Let’s go find it.”

  While they walked off, I bent down and picked up the sleeping red-haired nymph. She snuggled against my chest with a sweet sigh, and I had the urge to just sit back down on the couch and hold her that way all night.

  Shaking my head, I forced that thought away and carried the little girl down the hall to her bedroom. Her blankets were turned down already, and I slipped her carefully onto the mattress and tucked her in tight.

  Beck and Justin found the nightlight and plugged it in close to his bed. I could see that he was still uncertain so I approached him with a reassuring smile.

  “I have something for you.”

  “What?”

  I slipped the little piece of amulet from my pocket and dropped it into his outstretched hand. His fingers clamped around it and he clutched it to his chest.

  “You know what it is, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “Like Jilly’s?”

  “Like Jilly’s. If you ever need anything you can use this to call me. Okay?”

  His immediate fears alleviated, his eyes became drowsy and he yawned again. Beck kissed his forehead. “Good night, son. I love you.”

  “Love you too, Dad.”

  After we put Justin to bed, I followed Beck to the kitchen. He pulled out the bottle of wine I’d seen just a few days ago in his fridge and poured me a glass before grabbing a beer for himself. I took a long drink and waited to see what we were going to do next. He motioned with his arm and headed to the living area. I trailed after him.

  I resumed my previous spot on the couch, took another drink, and waited some more. My nerves were frayed and I couldn’t tell what the heck was going on in his mind.

  “So I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” he began, taking a swig of beer and pausing. His brows pursed together in consternation as he gazed off into nothing and paced back and forth a few times.

  Damn, I thought to myself. What an idiot I was. He asked me to come back here to his house and I packed an overnight bag? What a fool. All he really wanted was to have a breakup talk.

  “Listen, Beck. It’s okay. You don’t have to make this any harder on us. I thought maybe in time I could ease you into the whole magic thing. I didn’t expect it to get so crazy so fast. I understand what you want to say, so you don’t even have to say it.”

  He stopped moving and shook his head as he turned to look at me. “Do you think I’m trying to end things here?”

  I blinked and took a deep breath. “You’re not? What are you trying to do then?”

  “Lynlee, I was going to talk about our living arrangements. I want you to start spending more time here with us.”

  I finished off the wine with one gulp. “You do?”

  An exasperated sigh poured from his lips, and he grabbed the back of his neck with one hand, kneading it for a moment. Then he stared hard into my eyes with an expression intended to press home how serious his next words would be. “Lynlee Lincoln, I’m in love with you. What the hell would make you think I want to break up with you?”

  “After all that’s happened I just… wait a minute. What did you just say?”

  He took my empty glass from my hand and set it on the coffee table. When I saw that my hand was shaking, I clinched it into a fist and stuffed it in my lap.

  Beck turned back to me and cupped my cheeks with both hands. “I said I’m in love with you and I want you to start staying here with us. Couldn’t you figure that out?”

  I tried to tighten the waves of emotions inside me into a little ball, but tears formed in my eyes anyway. “No, I couldn’t,” I managed to whisper. “After all that’s happened— all the magic stuff? And what you saw happen to me? You love me?”

  “I’m pretty sure I told you I loved you the other night.”

  “But that was sex talk.” The words rushed out before I could stop them.

  He looked incensed and released another long rush of air from his lips. “You told me you loved me while we were having sex. Were you just saying that so you could get to my body?”

  My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I closed my lips. Then a giggle welled up in me and I couldn’t hold it back. Finally able to contain my mirth, I said, “I’d say just about anything to get to your body, Beck. But I really do love you.”

  “And I really love you.”

  Once I stopped laughing I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face, wiping the tears from my eyes. “I’m on edge about the magic, Beck. It’s part of me. I don’t just practice magic—I think, live, and breathe it. And I know how you feel about it and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I find myself keeping it from you to protect what we’ve got going, but that’s not right. I shouldn’t hide it. We should be open with each other if this is going to work.”

  “You know how I did feel about it, but things are different now. I don’t get all of this magic and MAUCs. I certainly don’t like the aspect of it that would kidnap my son and try to change him into a… a goblin. But there’re crazy people everywhere, Lynlee. Not just MAUCs. I have to raise my kids up in this world, and at the moment the way I see doing that is with you here with me.”

  “And when I lost control? That horrible thing I became doesn’t give you pause?”

  He shook his head and released his hold on my face, though he remained close, placing one arm around my shoulder. “No, it doesn’t. What happened to you was astounding, I won’t deny it. Your body almost turned itself inside out, and the light from inside you was… blinding. I don’t remember what happened after the light but you saved my son, Lynlee.”

  I smiled. So big it hurt my face. I wasn’t used to feeling this good. I liked my life before Beck, but with him things were different. Sure, I vacillated between nervous uncertainty and irritation on occasion, but I wanted more of the bliss I felt with him. I wanted to feel more alive like I did when we were together.

  “So what were you thinking?”

  He shook his head like he was trying to clear his mind of a fog. “Thinking?”

  “You said you had a thought about our living arrangements.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot where this conversation started.” He chuckled and kissed my nose. “Well, I know you like your independence. And I know you like that crazy house too. So I get that you won’t be able to spend every night here. I just thought maybe we could consider weekends. What do you think?”

  What do I think? Well for one thing, I think I want to pass out with relief.

  “I think that might work.”

  I wasn’t sure what possessed me to contact Granny again. I wasn’t in trouble. I didn’t need a spell or a potion. For whatever reason, I was drawn to head into the back of my expansive cedar closet and pull out my silver mirror.

  After placing it in the stand, I thumped the mirror three times with my finger.

  “Shine and look and see it true. Vision me and vision you. Come to me and speak anew…”

  I stopped the spell short because I wasn’t sure how to end it. Before I always had a need, a request. Still, the mirror must have understood because it began to hum and vibrate before glowing red.

  Granny’s face appeared, a wry smile on her lips. I was surprised to see humor distorting her normally stern features, and I thought perhaps I had the wrong mirror.

  “Finally! Heavens to Murgatroyd, Lynlee Lincoln. Do you know how many times I’ve tried to summon you and you ignored me?”

  “Summon me? What the heck does that mean?”

  “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? You’ve embraced more of your magic.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I embraced my magic years ago. I’ve been a Neutralizer for…”

  “This has nothing to do with being a Neu
tralizer, Missy. And stop being a smart-mouthed brat.”

  The infernal woman knew how to tie me up into knots more than just about anyone. It was a wonder I didn’t break loose and go berserk each time I spoke with her just like I did a few days ago with the dark witch.

  “Something did happen.” I looked down at my hands as if there might be an answer to some riddle in my palms.

  “Are you going to tell me or am I supposed to try to guess?”

  Before I knew it, the entire episode spilled out of my mouth. My face was red with shame. My great-great-great-grandmother was an impressive witch in her day, and I knew that I was forever a disappointment to her.

  “I am surprised it has taken this long for it to happen. You’re a bit long in the tooth for your full powers to come to you.”

  I frowned in confusion, cocking my head to the side as I looked at her. “You sound as if this was a good thing. And it isn’t the first time it’s happened. The first time was when I was eighteen and I knew then that I could never, ever let go again.” Granny looked speechless. She gaped at me with her eyes wide and her mouth open. This was a first for me so I decided to pounce on it. “And who are you calling long in the tooth. Do you have any idea how old you’d be if you were still living?”

  She arched a brow and grinned. “Age is only a number, Lynlee. I look as gorgeous now as I did at your age. Isn’t the afterlife grand?”

  She was right. She was gorgeous, but I snorted anyway. “So what is it about the fact that my magic went bonkers that pleases you, Granny?”

  “First things first. Tell me about the first time this happened?”

  I didn’t want to think about that, but I knew Granny, and she wouldn’t answer my question until I answered her.

  So I told her about the day I found out my father lost his job. My parents hadn’t been affectionate people, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love them. I was a strong-willed woman, even when I was no more than an adolescent. His friend and coworker had sold my dad out for a promotion. I’m strongly defensive of people who are close to me, and when that friend came to the house to apologize, I lost it.

  “Something exploded in me,” I told her. “It just popped and I had no control over it. I came up off the ground with the strength of it. When I looked down at my mom and dad and his friend, they were so horrified…”

  “Go on,” she pressed, and when I looked at her, I thought I saw compassion in her expression.

  “A Neutralizer showed up to clean things up, but my parents never looked at me the same again. I didn’t know what happened to me, Granny. It scared me and I didn’t like losing control. I moved away from home and started training to be a Neutralizer.”

  “And training to contain your magic.”

  All I could do was bob my head up and down.

  “You were fighting a dark witch recently, weren’t you? Light…” she said as she flicked a hand in front of the mirror and a lovely yellow ball glowed from her palm, “…and dark…” With the other hand, she smothered the luminous ball with blackness. “We each possess both. For some of us, the light is suppressed, and for others, the darkness. Specifically to witches, the light and dark are centered in our powers. A dark witch has stronger powers of black magic. A white witch receives her powers of the light. Do you understand?”

  “Of course I do, Granny. You taught me all this a long time ago.”

  “And you obviously weren’t listening. You chose to take your cues from a goblin instead of your witch ancestor. Do you still have the book?”

  I knew she referred to the book of spells she’d left for me. Not exactly me, but the next person in my family to have magic. Each witch was supposed to secure their valuables in a sacred location before their death. You might wonder how they manage that when most people have no idea when they’ll die. Not so for witches. We usually foresee the time, the place, and the manner of our deaths. A blessing or a curse, I wasn’t sure. It did give me some confidence when I went into a dangerous situation because I hadn’t yet had any such premonition, so I figured death wasn’t knocking any time soon.

  Granny tapped her fingernails against the mirror, and I knew she was waiting for me to gather the book. I stepped out of her view and retrieved it from a box under my bed.

  “Got it.”

  “Look at the back. The inside cover. Do you see it?”

  I flipped the book to the desired location and found a page that was folded many times end over end. When I opened the page, I discovered a long family tree of sorts, beginning with a woman named Amaranda in the 12th Century A.D. Her name was written in bold letters with what looked to be golden ink. In fact, if I watched it long enough I could see the ink pulse with light.

  “She was a very great witch. She had the power to call upon the clouds and the wind.”

  I glanced down at the page, reading numerous names of witches and some warlocks. Every so often a witch or warlock name would be written in the same gold ink as Amaranda’s. Eventually, at the very bottom of the sheet, I saw my Granny’s name in plain black ink.

  “It is time to place your name in the book, Lynlee.”

  When she spoke, an inkwell and quill appeared before me, floating on air. Without question, I dipped the quill into the bottle and signed my name under the line leading from Dorothea’s. The script ebbed and pulsed gold.

  “Why is mine like that? Yours is just in ink, but mine is… different.”

  “Some of us receive only a touch of the magic. Others, ones like you, receive Amaranda’s full gift. What that means, Lynlee Lincoln, is that you have more power at your young age than I ever had when I was living. You’ve been locking it away all of this time because you allowed your parents to let you believe it was wrong. If you don’t embrace it, you will never discover all that you are.”

  I was still digesting my granny’s words when I went to see Helene later that day. I’d postponed our meeting with her bestie because of the mess with the dark witch. When she called me again, I knew I owed it to her to show.

  I orbed to Helene’s apartment and found her making cheese enchiladas. She glanced over her shoulder and gave me a nervous smile. “I’m so glad you could make it. Letty’ll be here any minute. Enchiladas are her favorite and we’re going to have a movie night.”

  All I could do was nod.

  When the cute yet plump blonde named Letty showed up, I decided we should get right to business. I mean, if she was going to freak out then I’d wipe her mind and get on my way so that she and Helene could enjoy their movie night.

  “So what do you do for a living, Lynlee?” she asked, taking the margarita Helene handed her.

  “Do you believe in magic?” I countered.

  Letty shrugged, and I saw from the corner of my eye Helene leaning farther in with bated breath.

  “Do you know what a satyress is?”

  “Yeah, I think I leaned about that in mythology glass. Don’t satyrs look like a half-man and half-horse?”

  “No,” Helene said, coming around the cabinet to stand before us. “Not a horse. A goat.”

  I figured she was giving me the cue, so I used my wand to remove the spell hiding Helene’s true features. Gradually her lower body morphed into a goat’s with small hooved legs and a tail. Her ears too became elongated like a goat’s and two small horns appeared. I looked at her a moment, having forgotten how beautiful she was in her natural form.

  “Is this a trick? Like smoke and mirrors or something?” Letty asked, tilting her head to the side, her eyes narrowed quizzically.

  “It’s not a trick, Letty.”

  After a few moments, Letty breathed. “Wow… this is awesome!” She took a step back, then two forward, reaching her hand out to finger Helene’s horn. “You know, my mom said one of my aunts is a vampire and that’s why we never get to see her during the day. I think my mom’s full of crap, but I still always wondered about this stuff.”

  Well, it was apparently the day for surprises because Helene’s friend didn’t
seem the least bit freaked out by her natural state. The girls began to chatter about all of the other “magical” creatures that might exist.

  Chewing my lip, I considered it a moment. Then I pulled out my phone and searched my contacts for Gerard Latham’s number. I still wasn’t sure about the idea of Hideaway Land, but I was beginning to wonder if my philosophy needed to change.

  Granny’s words came back to me. You’ve been locking it away all of this time because you allowed your parents to let you believe it was wrong.

  Since I was eighteen I’d believed it was best to keep who I was hidden. Best even to keep all of us MAUCs hidden. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe some people and some MAUCs could co-exist. I certainly hoped so because I wanted things to work for me and Beck.

  If Beck was willing to create a paradigm shift about magic so we could be together, then I maybe I could deal with a little shift in thinking myself. I might be opening up a whole new can of trouble, but that was a risk I decided to take.

  With a resolved sigh, I hit the button and dialed Latham’s number

  It’s always fun when writing a story to come across something random you didn’t know before. I decided Lynlee’s ancestry would go back as far as the 12th Century A.D. The idea that she could communicate with the previous witch in her family through a mirror came to me one day when I was cleaning our spare bedroom and happened upon an old hand mirror.

  When I did some online research I realized that mirrors as we know them today didn’t really exist in the 12th Century, which would have been when the original family mirror came to be.

  Up until at least the 13th Century, mirrors were just highly polished pieces of silver, bronze or tin. Later the technique of combining glass with the metal came into vogue and an amalgam of tin and mercury was used. In 1835 German chemist Justus von Liebig discovered the method of silvering whereby the metal could be applied to the back of glass. This eventually led to the invention of what we know as a mirror today.