Bewitching Belle

by Debra Kristi

  “We might not have experience,” I say, ripping a piece of paper from Jeanna’s notebook. “But I have a pretty good idea what to do.” I grab a pencil from the counter behind me.

  “How do you know if you’ve never done this kind of magick before?” Jeanna asks and leans over to get a better view of what I am writing. So far, I’ve scrawled out the four elements.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I just feel it, in here.” I tap my heart.

  “Bloodline magick,” James says. “It courses through every fiber of your body and soul.”

  I close my eyes and allow my mind to fill with the whispers of words. I write each one as it comes to me.

  “You’re good at this,” Jeanna says. I ignore her and keep transcribing.

  When the request is complete, I write it down three more times and hand a copy to each person sitting around the table.

  “I recommend we hold hands,” I say. “thus combining and amplifying our energy.” Luna and James study the magickal words scribbled on their individual slips. “We’ll read the spell in unison. Work in harmony,” I continue. “Let the energy and request grow. Then see where it goes.”

  “I’m in.” James slams his palm, and the paper, to the table. Jeanna and Luna chime, “Me too.”

  We clasp hands. Take deep breaths and center our thoughts. Our intentions. The group waits on my lead, and I don’t dare rush. I want to get this right. I breathe in and out and in and out, focusing on the simple action. The rest of the group does the same. I clear my mind, see only a muddled darkness and the mirror lying up on the table.

  Time passes like the gentlest of waves on the ocean, slight and with hardly a disruption. When my heart and mind are calm, focused on my mom, I call to the elements, speak the request for a peek into the past.

  The group joins me, and our words find harmony, cohesion. Soon, no one is reading from their slips of paper, but speaking the words from memory and from their beings. We repeat the request time and time again.

  The mirror fuzzies and sharpens, plays mini movies of things that once were. Memories scatter throughout time. Events from last week, and things from long before my mom started seeing Caleb. The mirror is old, and so the glimpses shared span an unexpected length of time.

  James drops his hold of Jeanna and Luna’s hands. “It could take forever searching this way.”

  I sigh. Drop my hands to the table. He isn’t wrong. We could end up wading through a lifetime of events, or more. “let me refine the spell.” Taking pencil to paper, I rework and expand the request. When done, I add my finishing touches to the other three slips of paper so that we’re all aligned.

  Outside, a car engine pulls to a stop. I glance at the wall clock. Like rain falling from the sky, time has slipped through our gathering and fallen into the past. The noise outside, the ride likely come to take Luna and me home.

  The doorbell announces Miri’s early arrival. James sprints across the room and opens the door with a smile and pleasant greeting. I’m three feet at his back, having moved to intercept my sister.

  “We’re not ready to go, quite yet.” I glance from Miri to the kitchen table behind me, back to Miri. “We’re still bouncing around a few thoughts.”

  “How much longer?” Miri moves into the front room and discards her jacket.

  “Er” I turn my attention to James. He shrugs. Turning to Jeanna and Luna, I receive the same reaction. “Fifteen minutes, maybe?”

  “Fine.” Miri plops onto the sofa and holds up the television remote. “Do you mind?” she asks James.

  “Help yourself,” he says and we both return to the kitchen, leaving Miri to channel surf.

  James, Jeanna, Luna, and I fall into our places around the table and the mirror placed within the center. We clasp hands and, once more, drop into a quiet chant, calling forth the memories of the past. This time, with a refinement to pinpoint our desired glimpse.

  “Earth, wind, water, and fire. Blessed be, and thanks to thee. Help us now and hear our plea. Bend of light and trick of eye, grant us views of what once transpired. Show us the moment in which Edith Roussard was acquired.”

  We chant the same phrase over and over, never ceasing. The mirror fogs, a mixture of dreary and bright, then clears with images from the past. An empty room. The bedroom at the French-Quarter house. A frustrated version of my mom enters, tosses her handbag to the bed. The thump of a closing door and Caleb appears at her back, wrapping my mother within his entangled embrace.

  Our voices lower, but our chant continues in order to keep our connection to the past active.

  “The start of anything new is paved with difficulties,” he says, lowering his head into the nape of her neck. “But, if you trust me, are willing to entrust your future, your vibrant life within my care, I will see that we achieve that perfection you so desire.”

  “Of course, I trust you.” Mom wraps her hands over his and leans her head into him.

  “Do you entrust your life into my care?” He kisses her neck.

  I want to gag. Look away, but I remain focused on the task. Pinpoint the moment Caleb gained access to my mom’s inner controls.

  “I do,” she says.

  “Say it.” His demand is soft and sugarcoated with physical affection. She spins within his encircled arms. Drapes her arms over his shoulders. “I want to hear you say it.” He kisses her cheek, her forehead, her lips.

  “I entrust my life into your care,” she whispers.

  Our chanting stops. I raise my gaze from the mirror and glance around my circle of friends. “That’s the moment,” I say. “That’s the moment she handed Caleb control.”

  “What are you doing?”

  My entire body jolts.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Miri’s voice is close at my back, loud, and fueled with a plethora of emotions. Everyone at the table shifts, and stares at her.

  “That was Caleb. Caleb and Mom.” She jabs a pointed finger at the mirror.

  “Yeah.” My hand swings outward as if to say obvious. “He’s the one currently controlling her, right?”

  Miri nods.

  “Well, Luna and I recently found out that, in order for Caleb to have the ability to do such a thing to her, she had to have granted him that power at some point. What you saw, right now, in there…” I point my thumb over my shoulder, indicating the mirror from mom’s room. “I believe that to be the moment said power was granted.”

  I release a heavy sigh.

  “That looked like Caleb’s place in the Quarter.”

  I nod. “If I had to guess, it’s from the day we moved in.”

  “The day we moved away from the protections of the family home,” she adds.

  “Wait. What?” Jeanna leans into the table.

  “You have wards protecting your grandma’s place?” James practically leaps from his seat. “Sweet.”

  “My family could have used something like that,” Luna mumbles.

  “Powerful wards put in place by the infamous ancestor everyone seems to hate,” Miri adds and presses her palms to the table, leans into the group. “Around the time we moved out of the house was about the same time I found myself dealing with some difficult control issues.”

  “What do you mean?” I shift sideways to better study her response.

  “That infamous ancestor of ours…” She swings her gaze around the group and comes to pause on me. “Her energy continues to live on, and it is immensely strong. She attempted to take possession of me and my life. She tried to replace me.”

  “No vampin’ way!” I lean away, my mouth dropping open. “How come I never knew this?”

  She shakes her head. “It was at a time when there was a lot going on. We had just moved out. Mike was always moping around or gone, and you…” She swings a point in my direction. “You were discovering your own magick.”

  “So…” My gaze flickers from her to the mirror and back. “You had to go through that struggle alone?”

  “Damn girl!” Jame
s leans forward and flattens his spread fingers across the table’s surface.

  “Grandma helped, a bit,” Miri says. “But ultimately, it came down to me and my ability to stand up for myself and deny her.” She lowers her head. “What if it’s the same thing for Mom?”

  Luna leans forward, turning tighter into the conversation, listening intently.

  “What if she is the only one who can abolish Caleb’s control?”

  I let out a long breath and fold my hands in front of me. Stare into the blurred space of the table. What if Miri’s speculation is correct and Mom is the only one who can put a stop to Caleb. She let him in, and now she must kick him out. But…

  “How do we reach her, the real her, not the Caleb manipulated version of her?” I ask.

  “That’s the question we should be asking.” Miri pushes away from the table and crosses her arms. “How do we wake Mom up enough so that she can revoke Caleb’s access?”

  The next few days blur together. It’s all study, planning, caretaking, and a lot of my new favorite thing: holding Luna’s hand. There’s schoolwork, yes, but Luna and I spend hours on the phone with James and Jeanna. We make plans to locate and kidnap Luna’s father, remove him from the bokor’s control so that he can detox and return to his normal self. We also make a list of spells that could come in handy against the bokor’s men, the bokor, and the bokor’s magick.

  Tuesday brings thunderstorms, and the rain continues into Wednesday, which keeps us mostly cooped up in the house. Still, we manage to brave the weather and the Mardi Gras congestion to pick up clothing and supplies for Luna, plus visit her mom at the hospital. Her mom sleeps a lot. And I mean, a lot. She’s sleeping every time we visit. I’m not sure that much sleep is normal, even for someone as sick as she was, but the nurses insist Mrs. Flores is doing fine. The infection has cleared, and it appears her body has accepted the blood transfusion without issue. Her planned release is set for Friday.

  Hope she’s awake for that.

  We also spend a fair amount of time with Mom, or Caleb. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who it is we are talking to. Caleb has become a master actor. Bastian is constantly trying to slip through the open door, and thwarting him is a constant effort. A contest of force, and I am always winning.

  Sometimes, when Luna and I visit with Mom, Miri joins us. More often than not, she’s busy with school, and Phillip, and wedding plans, but when time allows, she watches over her family. That includes Grandma, Mom, me, and now Luna.

  “Is it because of the ancestor who tried to control you that you’ve chosen not to do magick?” I ask. We’re kneeling beside the bed, giving Mom a partial sponge bath. Arms and legs, you know, the exposed and easy to reach areas. Neither of us is comfortable untying Mom at this point.

  “You should have given in,” Mom hisses. “You might have been the most powerful witch in all of Louisiana.”

  Miri’s demeanor tenses, and she doesn’t answer me, but later, when we are no longer in the room with Mom, she tells me it was partially because of the ancestor. The other reason… she whispers our brother’s name and places her hand to the left side of her face. For the first time since the fire, it’s clear to me Miri blames herself for the scar Michael now carries.

  He seems to have adjusted, though. I’ve never witnessed him treat Miri any differently than he did before. He’s still as dedicated to family as he ever was… just with the new added obligation to school and burger flipping, his part-time job.

  Despite classes and work, Michael still calls twice a day to check in on Mom’s condition. Once in the morning and again in the evening. He also stops by on Tuesday and again on Thursday to assess her physical and mental state in person.

  During his Tuesday visit, I beg him to stand with my little coven against Chuks the bokor. He says he’ll think about it.

  Seriously? What’s there to think about?

  Chuks is bad, and he needs to be stopped. End of story.

  Grandma has come to treat Luna like an extension of our family. It warms my heart to see Luna smile when my grandma smothers her with love. Luna needs all the positive energy we can heap upon her right now. If she stops to assess her life, there are some major dark lakes swelling over.

  My favorite time during this week of adjustment and planning is in the early morning when Grandma takes Luna and me under her wing and mentors us in the art of elemental connection and spell casting. Luna has exploded a few flowers and vases, but she’s starting to gain better control.

  As Thursday slides toward a close, my insides begin to tighten, solidify to stone. Mrs. Flores is supposed to be released tomorrow, and I’m not ready for Luna to leave my home. Having her around on a regular basis makes the hard heavies a fair degree lighter.

  Around nine o’clock, we curl up on our respective sofas and stare across the space between us.

  “Looking forward to breaking your mom free tomorrow?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she blurts. “And no.”

  My breath catches. Is it possible she harbors the same feelings as me about our current housing situation coming to an end?

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my mom, and I’m glad she’s getting better.” She clings to her crisscrossed legs, her fingers tightening and releasing. “But every time we’ve visited her, she’s been in some sort of coma sleep, and I don’t know what to make of that.”

  My breath releases and my gut drops. Luna’s hesitancy has nothing to do with leaving me to move back home. It’s about her mom, and that makes sense. My gaze flickers toward the ceiling, as do my thoughts to my own mom.

  “Goodnight, girls. I’m going to bed.” Grandma turns off the light in the adjoining room and starts climbing the stairs.

  “Goodnight, Grandma,” Luna and I say in unison.

  We watch and wait while she climbs the stairs. Turns off the stairwell light from above. The room, now dressed in shadows, is lit only by a small lamp at the edge of the room and the fraction of streetlight filtering in through the windows.

  Luna leans forward, into her lap. “What if my mom returns home as some different kind of zombie? A result of whatever the bokor did to her? Then both my parents will be some version of the living dead.”

  My mouth pops open, and I want to say something but what? What should I say? Michael told me we can help Luna’s dad by getting him away from those feeding him whatever poison it is that makes him zombie-like. But, if her mom returns home with issues, then what’s the answer for that? She’s been in the hospital, a place where she should have been cleansed of anything some bokor would have slipped her.

  My mouth becomes desert dry. I swallow. Swallow again.

  The headlights of a car move past the window, sending a streak of light shifting through the room. My body tenses, and I stare across the dim room at Luna. Wind howls and the house creaks. Her eyes widen and she stares back.

  A shrill.

  We both jolt.

  The shrill becomes a ring. The ring of a phone.

  My hands fly to my lips, holding back a laugh, and I rock forward. Luna breaks into giggles. A tension built over talk of zombies, dark rooms, and creepy winds is broken by a phone call.

  I jump off the sofa and rush to the phone, snag the receiver from the cradle. “Hello?” My breath betrays my quick dash between rooms.

  “Is Luna there?” a man asks. “This is her uncle Andy.”

  Pulling the receiver from my ear, I stretch my phone-clutching hand toward Luna. “It’s for you,” I say. She crosses the room, a frown on her lips and her fingers rubbing against the base of her neck. I tell her it’s her uncle, and her eyes light with understanding. She takes the phone. Holds it so that I, too, can hear the conversation.

  “Yes,” she deadpans.

  “The other day, you mentioned your dad falling prey to Chuks's zombie curse,” he says.

  “The bokor. Yes,” Luna says, making it clear she isn’t comfortable calling the bokor by anything other than his title.

  “Well,
I did a little asking around, and I know where he’s being kept.”

  “My dad?” Luna’s body jerks straight. “Where is he?” The light behind her eyes brightens.

  “I’ll take you there, tomorrow. It’s already too late for tonight,” he says.

  “But my mom is supposed to be released from the hospital tomorrow.” She scratches the side of her head. “I don’t…”

  “Do you not want to rescue your dad?” her uncle asks.

  “No, no. I want to get him. I just…”

  “Figure it out,” he blurts. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, around five twenty.”

  “Why so late?” she quips. “Why can’t we go right now?”

  “Because, such things are best done after business hours, under the cover of a darkening sky. And it’s already too late tonight,” he replies. “Now, where should I collect you?”

  “Lafayette Cemetery. Number One,” I interject. “Northeast corner.” Luna pulls back and glances at me sideways. “It’s close and easy to find,” I whisper. Her lips pucker.

  “Consider it done,” her uncle says. “See you then, and be sure to wear shoes with traction and dark clothing.” He ends the call.

  “You, me, and my uncle, sneaking around like dejected ninjas?” She blinks twice. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

  “We’re not going to die. We’re going to save your dad.” I squeeze her hand.

  “But his magick…”

  “Hey.” I strike my finger through the air, cutting her off. “We have magick on our side, too. Don’t ever forget that. You need to be strong and believe in yourself.”

  She drops her head and nods. “I do. I believe.

  A vacuum is swirling in my chest, and I need to put my emotions at ease. Stack the odds in our favor. I pick up the phone and punch in a number. Luna turns her gaze up to me, questions filling her big brown eyes.

  “I’m calling in reinforcements.” I push the last digit in James’s phone number. “We will be stronger with more witches to cast and protect.” Luna nods, a meek smile attempting to curl across her lips.