“They’re perfectly nice, and I think they have enough to worry about. I got the distinct scent of a last-ditch effort to rejuvenate a relationship.”
Mag snorted, “Well, in that case, they should have brought a bigger tent.”
“Or a smaller sleeping bag.”
“Why did you bring your cats camping? Don’t cats hate the water? Are you afraid they’ll run off and drown? Do you think it’s going to rain tonight? The sky looks kind of dark and gloomy. Did I show you my elephant? His name is Jerry. His wife, Jasmine, is at home. They’re taking a break.” Kaeden talked a blue streak while following Mag around the side of the minibus, which, upon seeing the interior, he’d deemed ‘the awesomest camper ever.’
Xavier, who was considerably more gentle with the cats than Clara would have expected after hearing the way he spoke to his brother, had coaxed Pyewacket out of hiding with a piece of beef jerky pulled from the depths of a bulging cargo pocket. Now she was curled up on his lap, purring gently while he scratched the silky spot behind her ears.
Which one enjoyed the experience more, Clara couldn’t tell.
“You can tell him to shut up if you want to. It won’t help, though. He never stops talking.” Xavier commented with an eye roll.
Clara grinned. “I have a sister who does the same thing.” She said, her eyes twinkling as they met Mag’s. “What grade are you in, Xavier?”
“I’ll be in sixth this year. That’s middle school. So much cooler than elementary.” His voice held pride and a little bit of trepidation, not that he’d admit it, Clara was sure.
Kaeden continued his verbal assault on Mag until Jinx approached from the beach with a piece of white fabric in his mouth. “Hey, that’s my sock!” He hurried over to the cat and tried to tug it away, but Jinx held on and then took off in the other direction, whiskers twitching in feline challenge.
Giggling, his chubby cheeks dimpled, Kaeden handed the beloved elephant to Mag and ran after Jinx.
The pair returned minutes later, with Kaeden carrying Jinx, and Jinx still carrying the sock.
“You’ll never guess what I found. Not in a million, billion years.” Sock forgotten, Kaeden lowered Jinx onto one of the folding chairs and bounced from one foot to the other in front of his brother.
Showing all the scorn he could muster, Xavier raised an eyebrow at his younger brother but declined to guess.
“A pirate buried his treasure right here on the beach.”
“Did not.”
“Did, too. Says so on one of those poster things. It’s over there.”
Rare is the boy, even one jaded by his place as the eldest brother, who can resist the lure of pirate booty. Not even one who has reached the lofty age of eleven.
“Here, take this, but don’t forget to return it when you’re done.” Mag handed over the folding camp shovel she’d brought along in case she wanted to do a little digging herself.
“Thanks! I call first dibs.” Xavier hastily dumped Pye off his lap, and, grabbing the shovel, followed his brother toward the beach.
“Sorry, Pye.” Grinning at the annoyed arch of feline back, Mag qualified, “But I bought us some peace and quiet.”
And Mag took advantage of both by plunking down in her chair for a nap.
“I’m worried about those kids. They must be miserable in that tent.” In the rain-lashed darkness, Clara couldn’t see any sign of light glowing through the canvas. She hoped the Young family had decided to hunker down and try to sleep through the storm.
The sound of the wind came first. Like a cornered animal, the growl and roar of it announced worse to follow, until the wall of air bashed against the side of the bus, rocking it until the springs creaked. A spatter of hail mixed with the driving rain pinged off the metal roof. If this kept up, no one would be getting any sleep.
Half an hour crawled past before Mag pulled out the Parcheesi board and talked the familiars into playing. Clara joined in, but with half her attention focused elsewhere, only managed to move one of her pieces home by the end of the game.
“Suck it, losers.” As usual, Mag gave no quarter when a win was on the line.
“You don’t have to rub it in,” Jinx collapsed into his furry form and presented his backside to his witch companion. Mag retaliated with a snarky comment, and in return, a flick of his tail sent dice and markers scattering.
“That was rude.” Still, Mag smirked at his retreating back.
“So was your victory dance.” With an impatient flick, Clara’s magic sent the game pieces sailing into the box. The constant whine of the wind grated on nerves already frayed. “Let Jinx pick the next game, but I reserve the right to veto.”
Twenty pounds of fluffy cat hit the floor with a thump as Jinx made his way to the stack of games. He hesitated long enough for Mag to make an annoyed hmphing sound before he laid a white paw on Monopoly.
“Veto,” Clara shook her head, “Takes too long. We’ll be up all night. Pick again.”
“Park and Shop,” Pyewacket suggested.
“Veto.” This time from Mag. “I’m on vacation from anything that has the word ‘shop’ in it.”
Jinx let out a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a snarl, then the paw landed on Clue. When no one opposed, he shook off his fur and returned to human form, muttering something about being surrounded by females.
The wind died down sometime before Clara outed Colonel Mustard for doing the dirty deed in the ballroom with a rope.
“Now that’s more like it,” she said as she settled down with the patter of a gentle rain lulling her to sleep.
The soft light of a morning sunbeam filtered through the window and played over Clara’s face. Her eyes felt drier than Saharan pebbles covered in grit when she finally pried them open. Judging by the pesky beam’s angle, she figured it couldn’t be later than seven. Too early to get up on a day when she had nowhere else to be.
With a lazy finger twitch, she flicked the curtain closed and went back to sleep.
“You think they’re all dead?” When a nine-year-old boy attempts to whisper, it rarely comes out quietly. “I heard Mom and Dad talking about some houses around here being robbed. Maybe the bad guys came along and…”
Clara assumed by the slurping sound he made, Kaeden had also run his finger across his throat to indicate brutal murder.
“What would robbers come here to steal? A bunch of old camping supplies? Nah, they’re probably just sleeping. Old people need a lot of rest. We learned about it in health class.” Xavier’s sage reply poked a pretty big hole in Clara’s ego.
At two hundred and fifty odd years, she supposed she did qualify as old people, but she thought she carried her age better than most and didn’t look a day over forty. Okay, maybe forty-two, but still.
“Dad said they’re squashed because there’s no road,” Kaeden spoke with the absolute conviction he was repeating a solemn truth.
“He did not. He said squatted. He said they must be squatting because they couldn’t have driven in here. Can’t you get anything right?”
A gentle snort issued from Mag, and Clara glanced over to see her sister also awake and listening to the pile of disdain Xavier heaped on his brother.
“Well, I think they’re nice and I don’t think they’re squashes or squishy squatters. You’re just being mean.”
“Whatever, Kaeden.” A rustle signaled at least one of the boys had gone.
“Don’t listen to him, Jerry. I bet they’re my fairy godmothers and this is their magic bus.” So quietly, his voice barely carried through the thin walls, Kaeden added, “Maybe they can fix mom and dad before they have to take a break like you and Jasmine.” Then he, too, padded away from the Balefire campsite.
People like Clara, when confronted with a child in utter misery, respond with compassion and a need to protect. Feeling exactly the same, but wired a little differently, Mag exploded with quiet fury.
“Coming here was stupid, and now we’re going to have to deal with that
family.”
“Margaret Balefire, if you’re suggesting we do something to hurt those children, I’ll—” Rising from the air mattress like an avenging angel, Clara prepared for battle.
Mouth hanging open, face creased from sleeping, hair looking like she’d snatched it off Einstein’s head and then run it through the dryer on the fluff cycle, Mag fired up.
“Who said I wanted to hurt anyone? You really do think the worst of me sometimes, Clarie.” Hurt rode Mag, dug heavy spurs into her sides at being misunderstood. “But I’m not wearing purple and shooting sparkles out of my wand in front of that kid. I don’t care how sweet he is.”
“Oh Maggie, I’m sorry. That was unforgivable. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Sincere, the apology came with a hug that Mag couldn’t avoid in the small space. “You’re the best one out of the two of us.”
“So you keep saying.” Mag mumbled as she exited the minibus and grabbed the shovel. “I’ll be out on the beach if you feel the need to accuse me of anything else.”
Clara sighed and watched Mag walk away, wondering if she’d ever get it right when it came to dealing with her sister.
Chapter Three
“Mom! We need a cardboard box and some tape to make a chest. We found Barnaby’s treasure.” Amplified by the water, Kaeden’s voice echoed off the rocky bluffs and killed Mag’s plans for fishing in peace. “Mom! Where are you?”
“Hush up, now. I’m right here.” Sunbathing on a striped beach towel, Renee raised up on her elbows and regarded her youngest son. “You’ll have to use your backpacks and your imaginations.”
“But Mooom! A backpack isn’t a treasure chest. It has to be a box.”
“Well, I don’t have any boxes. We hiked in here, remember?” Renee’s tone said the camping trip hadn’t been her idea of fun. “With only what we could fit in our backpacks.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. Can I ask Miss Clara for a box? Do you think she’d mind? I bet they have one.” Not waiting for an answer, Kaeden’s feet left divots in the sand as he scampered toward the VW ahead of his mother’s warning not to bother the nice Balefire ladies.
“Too late,” Mag muttered, but cheerfully. Still, she felt no remorse at leaving Clara to handle the situation while she shouldered her pole and headed toward the brook.
The Balefire magic came down through blood and was rooted in fire, but that didn’t stop Mag from sensing the power that flowed through the water and beat in the heart of the earth. The pulse of it thrummed under her feet, and when the trout rose to take her hook, she felt the spark and flash of its life force.
Mudwitch.
Not as fancy a title as Keeper of the Sacred Flame, but one she’d cultivated by making an effort to strengthen her connection to the magic present in the earth and all living things. Clara had made a better Keeper than Mag ever would. The job came with too much human contact and not enough solitude, particularly at Beltane when every witch in a two-hundred-mile radius showed up to renew her connection to the Balefire.
Amid the pomp and circumstance of ritual came the one thing Mag dreaded the most in all the world. The bane of her existence: idle chitchat.
She could wax poetic about the pregnant curve of a 19th-century brass spittoon or discuss the ideal handle length of a bed-warming pan. But she had no idea how to fake interest in some veritable stranger’s day-to-day life. Nor did she care to bore them with hers.
Still, those two boys. Something about them had pierced right through the layers of indifference she wore like battle-scarred armor. Never a mother—and she wasn’t sure anymore if that was by choice or circumstance—the immediate connection was something she’d never felt so strongly. Only a person made from ice or iron could withstand such bright and eager charm.
Trout and salmon haunted sun-dappled shallows before vanishing into deeper pools, but they were biting, and she caught her limit faster than expected. In fifteen minutes, barely enough time for the quiet rush of wind and water to settle her nerves, she was on her way back to camp.
“Any luck?” From the shade of a beach umbrella, Clara watched Kaeden and Xavier excitedly collecting items amid storm-tossed seaweed.
“Yeah, but it’s not as much fun when they practically jump on the hook. No sport in it. I like the thrill of the catch.” Mag’s shoes landed a few feet down the beach when she kicked them off to curl her toes into the heated sand.
Across the way, Tim sat on a beach towel a few feet from his wife and watched his sons. Every so often, his eyes flicked toward Renee, who seemed more interested in her paperback book than her husband.
“He’s miserable.” When Clara caught Mag watching, she offered a quiet opinion. “He loves her. Anyone could see that by the way his attention stays focused on her.”
“Maybe he should spare some for his surroundings,” Mag replied.
She pointed to the silver dollar-sized crab making a beeline for the shadowed safety offered by the spot where Tim’s shorts gaped away from his legs. The furtive movement caught Tim’s eye and he let out a high-pitched yelp. What followed was proof a crab is better at crab-walking than a man. Scooting backward as fast as he could go on hands and feet, Tim dodged left and then right, but the crab was in its element and determined.
The commotion startled Renee, who lifted her head to watch and failed to hide an amused grin at her husband being terrorized by the tiny denizen of the sea. A genuine smile banished the pinched expression that had worn grooves around her mouth. The weight lifted, and her eyes sparkled.
“Ngyah!” Tim rose to do the crab-in-my-pants dance across the sand, and Renee let out a peal of silvery laughter just as the little creature finally shook loose and dropped back onto the beach. It scuttled away, leaving Tim staring after it, his breath coming in short gasps, and Renee giggling helplessly.
“That wasn’t funny.” Now that the worst of it was over, Tim directed scowling attention back to his wife. It took only a moment for his expression to change from annoyed to something closer to wistful, and then, infected by her easy laughter, he grinned. “Okay, maybe it was a little funny.”
“They’re going to be okay.” Watching the couple share a moment unclouded by strife, Clara felt a little choked up. “If they can laugh together like that, they can work it out. Can’t you see how much they love each other?”
“Don’t get blinded by the stars in your eyes, Clarie. Love isn’t always enough.” It sounded like Mag was speaking from experience, but if she’d ever been in love, she hadn’t seen fit to tell her sister about it. Clara’s only inkling on the matter had come from seeing a carefully preserved flower her sister carried in her pack, and an occasional glimpse of the same wistful expression Tim had worn earlier.
When he settled back on the sand after checking the area to rule out another brush with rampaging wildlife, the distance between man and wife was halved.
Heat and the lulling shush of waves kissing the sand sent Clara into a meditative state, which lasted until ten pounds of annoyed cat landed on her lap and almost knocked the breath out of her.
“You’ve put on a little weight,” she told Pyewacket, and received a blue-eyed death glare in response. It seemed cats didn’t like that phrase any more than humans, especially cats who could be both. “Sorry. You’re a gorgeous specimen. Perfect in every way. Now, what’s up?”
Pyewacket put her paws on Clara’s shoulders and used her eyes to draw attention toward the access trail leading off through the woods.
“What is it, girl? Did Timmy fall down a well?” The Lassie comparison earned Clara a warning scratch on the arm. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.” But when Pye jumped down and headed in the direction she’d indicated, Clara tapped Mag on the arm.
“Saddle up,” she said when a bleary eye rolled her way.
“Something wrong?” Mag went from half asleep to fully alert at roughly the speed of a hummingbird’s wing. Flickers of witchfire played miniature lightning across her fingertips. The excess energy crackled and hummed, and st
ood her hair on end.
“Pye seems to think there’s something of interest happening near the access trail. I trust her judgment, but if it’s another dead body, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see it and go home. This is supposed to be a vacation.”
Mag declined to comment, but her lips formed a straight line. If she had her way, she’d still be dreaming about running through a field of daisies without fear of her bum leg playing up.
As dreams went, it wouldn’t make her top five—no man with oiled-up muscles wearing nothing but a pair of tiny shorts—but it hadn’t sucked. And given the choice, she’d go back to it rather than traipse off through the woods looking for who-knows-what. Clara wondered what had happened to her sister’s plan of treasure hunting; she’d spent the first two days on Pingree Beach doing little else but sleep and fish and eat.
“No rest for the wicked.” Mag arched her back to release a few kinks and picked up the stick of driftwood she’d been using as a substitute for her regular cane ever since she’d found it on the beach. “We need to gather some kindling anyway. Got fish to fry tonight.”
Pyewacket led them to the edge of the woods where Jinx waited and then pranced along beside him down the trail. Just a few yards in, the cats veered off the main path.
Signs of recent passage were clear enough, Mag thought, if you knew where to look for them. A broken branch, a smear of black where someone had stubbed out a cigarette on bare rock, moss scraped away from the spot where a shoe dragged over a log.
Her eagle eye picked out every detail, no matter how minor. More than a hundred years in pursuit of rogue magic hammered home the basics of tracking prey.
“Looks like Pye was right. Someone has been through here, and not too long ago, either.” Mag’s hunter instincts hadn’t deserted her, they’d only gone dormant.
“Not that there’s any reason for alarm,” Clara said. “This is public land and even if few people remember this place anymore, there must be some visitors every year. It’s probably nothing to worry about.” She hoped not, anyway.
Spell or High Water Page 16