by Mindy Klasky
It was the book.
Or, more precisely, the missing book. My handbook on crystals was gone.
I wasted a moment looking for it, even though I was certain it had been on the stand just the night before. I had seen it beside Neko’s mint concoction; I had specifically made sure that its parchment pages were safe from the cosmetic compound the boys had made.
“Did you move a book from here?”
Graeme was staring at me as if I had gone mad. “A book?”
“A leather-bound book. It was right here. On the stand. Where the necklace is now.”
“The only book I touched was the love spell one. It was over there on the couch, draped over the arm. I was just going to close it, to protect the spine, and I started reading a few pages. But I didn’t touch anything else. I wouldn’t touch anything else.” He reached out, closed his hands around my upper arms. “What, Jane? What is it?”
I barely whispered. “Someone broke in here. It must have been last night. After Haylee and I left to visit you. Someone broke in here and stole a book on crystals. And left…that.” I pointed toward the necklace.
He followed my trembling finger and then turned me around so that I couldn’t stare at the mottled blood-red stones. “What is it?” he asked urgently. “What does it mean?”
It meant that I was no longer safe in my own home. It meant that David had been right, that the risk was increasing as we got closer to Samhain. It meant that someone was working, harder than ever, to keep me from succeeding at setting the Coven’s centerstone.
“It means that I have to call my warder.”
“Your warder?” He sounded so completely confused that I was catapulted back to mundane reality. I realized that I must sound like a madwoman. Who worried about finding an unexpected necklace, or losing one little book? Who jumped to life-and-death conclusions on a morning when she should be stretching sex-sore muscles and contemplating breakfast in bed?
“I’m sorry, Graeme. This has to do with the Coven. With the witches I’ve told you about. Someone has broken in here and left that thing. It’s a threat. A sign to witches that they aren’t welcome. That they might come to harm.”
“Do you…” He swallowed hard, then looked at me without flinching. “Do you want me to do something with it? Throw it away? Take it to the police?”
I shook my head. “The police would laugh you out of the station.” I shivered, feeling sick in the pit of my stomach.
“Jane,” Graeme said, and I felt the tiny hairs on his knuckles as he brushed the back of his hand against my cheek.
“It’s all right,” I said, but I was pretty sure I was trying to convince myself. Not Graeme. “Or, it will be. I need to get my warder here, now, though.” I caught Graeme’s hand in mine. “And I don’t want him to see you. Not this morning. Not right now.”
Graeme shook his head. “I want to help you.”
“The biggest help is leaving. Don’t make me explain to him why you’re here.”
His eyes widened. “Does your…warder keep you from seeing other men?”
I shook my head—a terse motion. An angry one. But I didn’t even know who I was angry with. “No. It’s not like that. But David thinks that I’ve made…poor choices before. I don’t want to waste time explaining us, when we should focus on finding my book.”
Graeme still looked uncertain, but he nodded, reaching out to pull me close to his chest. His arms felt like a solid wall around me. I longed to lean against him—to collapse against him—for a long, long time. His fingers strayed to the sash at my waist, and I finally had to close my hands over his. “Graeme…”
He pulled back, his rakish grin nearly stopping my heart. “Call me. Let me know what happens.”
“You know I will.”
And he was gone. Up the stairs. Out the door. Gone.
I knew what I had to do. I’d done it once before, in a panic. Now, I measured out my power, poured it into a single steady stream of magic. Neko, I thought, broadcasting my power like a radio beacon. Neko. I need you. Home. Now. And for good measure, I included David in my transmission. After all, he’d sense the power I was spending. Better to invite him than have him show up unannounced.
Not that I’d done anything wrong. This time.
I closed my eyes, the better to concentrate. “Neko!”
“No need to shout.” He stood in front of me, surveying the basement with the wariness of a hunter. Without his silly Mexican accessories, his leather pants and silk shirt seemed sleek, dangerous. His eyes darted to the corners of the room, and his nose twitched warily. I couldn’t help but glance down at my robe, wondering just how much Neko could sense about my escapades the night before. If he glanced at the clothes thrown around my bedroom, he’d conclude that Nate Poindexter was one smooth operator.
I shivered and jerked my sash tighter. Neko was my familiar, not my jailer.
He found the necklace immediately. Stalking around the book stand, he eyed the jewelry from every angle, his nostrils twitching as he recognized the thyme and oregano. He reached out one hand, a frown marring his smooth features, and he started to breathe through his mouth—as if he could sense more that way. As if the very air in the room could tell him what had happened. Who had been here, invading our privacy. Our safety. Our home.
“What do you sense?” David’s voice was quiet, but I could hear the urgency behind his question. I wasted a moment, wondering when I had become so accustomed to his presence that I did not flinch at his silent arrival.
Neko cast his head to one side. “Nothing particular.”
“What does that mean?” prodded my warder.
“I can feel you,” Neko said, shoulders twitching in annoyance. “And Jane of course. And Jacques and me.”
Jacques! Could he be the source of the eerie jasper warnings? That was absurd, though. He’d never shown the slightest interest in anything magical, and he’d certainly had ample opportunity, with all the time he spent at the cottage. He was interested in Neko’s body and—just possibly—my familiar’s mind (or at least his fashion sense.) But Jacques had nothing to do with the threat in my basement.
“And?” David prompted.
“And…the Coven.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but I ultimately needed to prod. “The Coven?”
“I can sense them here.” He moved his hand in the air above the necklace.
“All of them? Like they held a meeting here?” I could not picture all of those Junior League women crowded into my basement. Their warders would have needed to wait upstairs, maybe in my bedroom. Their familiars would have been painfully obvious, lurking in the shadows of my too-small basement room. They would all have been disappointed in the caliber of my refreshments, too, unless a pitcher of watered-down rum and a few dried-out vegetables on a platter were their idea of slumming fun.
“Of course not,” Neko snorted, and my fantasy image disappeared. “But there’s a…dusting. Like talcum powder, settled from the air.”
“How many were here?” David asked, his eyes darting around the room, as if he expected to find malefactors still lurking in the corners.
“One?” Neko said, but he made the statement a question.
“When?” David said.
“I can’t tell.” Neko twitched and shook his head in exasperation. “My mind knows that the jasper wasn’t here when I left last night. But I can’t sense how it actually got here. Something is blocking me.”
I asked, “Could someone have made it materialize here? Without actually coming into the basement? And then have stolen my book?”
David’s eyes narrowed. “It’s possible, but that would take a tremendous energy drain. Most witches don’t have anywhere near that level of skill, working with something as antithetical to their powers as jasper.”
“But Teresa Alison Sidney—” I started to argue.
“Oh, Teresa Alison Sidney could do it.” David nodded slowly. “She might be the only witch on the Eastern Seaboard who could.
”
I rubbed my arms with cold hands, my belly turning queasily at the notion that the Coven Mother herself might be stalking me. “But why would she?” I asked, not caring that my voice was tiny. “Why would she try to frighten me like this?”
David glanced at me and seemed to awaken from his own spell. Squaring his shoulders, he crossed the room and settled a handkerchief over the necklace and herbs. The oily discomfort in my gut eased as soon as they were out of sight, even though I knew that they were still present in the room. “That’s the thing,” David said. “I don’t think that she is. There’s no reason for her to intimidate you.”
“But who…” I trailed off, realizing that if Teresa Alison Sidney hadn’t made the jasper materialize, then someone actually had broken into my cottage.
“Were you home last night?” David asked.
I braced myself for his disapproval. “No.”
Threading an even note of steel through his words, David said, “Where did you go?”
“Virginia,” I hedged.
“To the Coven?” David’s tone was disbelieving. “By yourself?”
“There are lots of other places in Virginia,” I said. “Who says we had to go to the Coven?”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
My lips clamped shut. I felt like a teenager, caught sneaking out after curfew. Neko glanced between us and then said, “Haylee.” He flashed me an apologetic smile, shrugging as if to say that his reply was all for the best.
“Haylee James!” David’s surprise was explosive. And a tiny part of my brain was relieved that he was so upset about Haylee. I just might get away without needing to admit that I had brought a man home after my excursion to the wilds of Virginia. After all, David was my warder, not my father. He had no reason to police my romantic liaisons.
“She’s my friend,” I answered hotly.
“She is not your friend,” David said.
“She’s the only person in the Coven who has actually reached out to me! She’s the only one who acts like I might possibly be treated as an equal after Samhain!”
David’s jaw tightened, and I knew from experience that he was barely restraining himself from making some unpleasant observation. He started three different sentences before he settled on, “Did Haylee come down here last night? Did she have any time alone with your collection?”
“Of course not! Neko and Jacques were here, getting ready for their party. Haylee and I left shortly after they did.” I rolled my eyes. “David, Haylee wasn’t alone in the cottage the entire time that she was here.” I flattened my voice, making it absolutely clear that I would not tolerate more discussion about my only witchy friend. “It wasn’t Haylee.”
David sighed and ran a hand through his hair. That motion chilled me even more than the jasper necklace had. David only ran a hand through his hair when he was truly worried. When he actually believed that I was in danger. That something might go terribly wrong.
“I don’t want you staying here.” His tone was flat. Absolute. “Call Melissa. See if you can sleep at her place for a while. Just until after Samhain.”
I shook my head, even before he was through issuing his command. “No.”
“She’s your best friend. She’ll understand.”
Right. We weren’t even speaking to each other. She’d be just thrilled to have me sleeping on her couch, to have my colonial dresses filling her closet. And I’d have a grand time, shlepping up here to the Peabridge every morning, walking the streets like some Revolutionary War re-enactor. “She won’t,” I said. “You can’t make me stay with Melissa.”
David must have heard the adamance in my tone. “Then go to your grandmother.”
I pictured my pink bedroom, complete with little corners of tape that had once held up posters of Kevin Costner and Andy Garcia. “I can’t do that. Besides, how would I explain it to her? She’d worry herself sick.”
“Jane—”
“David,” I countered. “I’m not giving in to them, whoever they are. Let’s just say that Neko’s right.” My familiar yelped indignantly, but I rolled forward without stopping. “Let’s say that the warnings are from someone in the Coven. Someone who broke in after Haylee and I left last night. That person wants to set me off balance. She wants to keep me from centering on my witchcraft, from being ready on Samhain.” I firmed my resolve and raised my voice. “But I won’t give in. I’ve got to stay here, to study. To center myself. To learn everything I can.”
“Jane—”
“David, I’ve got less than three weeks.” I did some quick math. “Nineteen days to prove myself. Don’t disrupt that time. Don’t make me turn everything else in my life upside down when I should be focusing on magic!”
I could see he was wavering. He looked at the hundreds of books, at my container of crystals. He actually looked at me—for long enough that I started to feel uncomfortable.
“If I let you stay here…” I nodded, encouraging him. He kept his eyes on me and reached into his pocket before he said, “You have to promise me…”
He pulled out his key chain, cupping his Hecate’s Torch in his palm. Both of us stared at the sleek silver lines, at the art deco design that seemed to glow with a light of its own. I realized once again how much I wanted to have my own Torch, how much I longed to be welcomed into the Coven, to have this testing and judging and suspicion behind me.
David reached some sort of conclusion in his own mind. He fumbled with the key chain for just a moment, and then he passed the Torch to me, slipping his liberated keys back into his pocket.
“I can’t take that!”
“Yes, you can.”
“But it’s yours!”
“It’s mine, and part of my warder’s powers are linked to it. Enhanced by it. I can keep better track of you if you’re wearing it. Put it on a silver chain, and keep it close to your heart.”
I felt a blush flood my cheeks, and I tried one last time. “I’m not allowed to have a Torch until the Coven gives me my own.”
“If you don’t take this one now,” David said evenly, “you might not last long enough for the Coven to give you your own.”
I swallowed hard, unable to keep from looking at the now-hidden jasper necklace. Whatever bravado I had mustered to argue against moving in with Melissa, camping out at Gran’s, I really was disturbed that someone had broken in the night before.
I closed my fingers over the Torch. I could sense David’s presence in the metal amulet; I could feel his quiet, calm aura emanating from the silver. When Gran had offered me her Torch, weeks before, I had told her I couldn’t take it; I had known that its magic would clash with my own.
I didn’t feel that danger from my own warder’s charm. It wasn’t opposed to me. In fact, it felt as if it had already melded with my own magical abilities. “All right,” I said.
David did not look happy, but he managed a nod. “Silver,” he said. “Chain. Now.”
I tried not to watch as he pocketed the jasper and the herbs. I did not breathe easily until I had his Torch around my neck, warming a spot above my fast-beating heart.
22
David sat back on my couch, the hunter-green fabric enveloping him like a cloak. He sighed like a man who had just finished consuming a porterhouse steak. With a loaded baked potato. Along with a bottle of aged cabernet. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him pat his belly in contentment. “Perfect,” he said, favoring me with one of his rare grins. “I don’t think we have anything left to review.”
The past two and half weeks had flown by—the fastest eighteen days of my life. Things had gone smoothly—surprisingly smoothly.
I hadn’t found a single jasper ornament anywhere in or around the house. While I did continue to receive e-mails from my anti-witch stalker, I’d been able to set up a filter program to block them from my computer screen. (After all, there weren’t any work-related reasons for anyone to send me messages with the words “coven,” “safehold,” or “centerstone.”)
&nbs
p; I knew David remained wary, but he had not policed me unfairly. He’d probably been reassured when I’d committed to working with him on a daily basis. Tonight, though, was the first time I’d heard him express actual contentment with the progress that we’d made. I felt a bit like a lost little girl, uncertain about the kindly rescuer who was offering me a free ride home.
Even as Neko executed an elaborate, spine-twisting stretch, I asked, “Are you sure? I’ve still got fifteen minutes before I have to get back to the library.”
While David glanced out the window toward the back of the Peabridge, Neko hissed his disapproval. My familiar was less than pleased with the amount of time we’d spent working, even if he understood exactly how much rode on my Samhain magic. “Why don’t you astonish Evelyn?” David suggested. “Get back from your lunch hour on time for once.”
I spluttered, but I could hardly come up with a snappy reply. In the past few weeks, I’d become an absolute star at stretching out my midday break. Anyone could tack on five or ten extra minutes by claiming to lose track of time, or blaming traffic, or complaining about slow service at a restaurant. But with the final phases of preparing for the centerstone working, I had routinely dragged lunch out to two hours.
I had tried to make up for my extravagant lunch hours by going in early. Not that I was hugely successful with that gambit. But it’s the thought that counts. By good fortune, Evelyn had let slip the fact that she loved a shot of cinnamon syrup in her morning coffee. Like the wicked witch that I was, I’d used that knowledge to the utmost of my ability. Five minutes early, cinnamon syrup and a dollop of whipped cream served with a wink and a smile—so far, I’d had no problem finagling the extra time that I’d spent studying to set the centerstone.
But now David said that we were through. I couldn’t believe him, couldn’t accept that truth. “Shouldn’t we go over the spells one more time?”
David shook his head. “You know them all by heart.”
“How about reviewing the ingredients for the herbal wash?”