Steven was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace, a worry stone clutched in his left hand with his thumb rubbing circles over and over it. Jodi was pacing the floor, not having grabbed anything to help calm her nerves, just crossing her arms over her chest and keeping her eyes down as she walked.
“That’s much better,” Deb said as she came around the corner from the hall into the living room and gave us a tired smile. As beautiful as I always thought she was, I could never figure out her age, knowing she was much older than she looked, but it wasn’t until today that I finally saw those years in her face.
“Feeling better?” I asked, setting the black crystal globe back on its stand beside the couch I was sitting on.
“Exhausted, but better,” she said with a nod, walking over to the matching armchair across from Steven and slowly lowering herself into it. “I am so sorry about that,” she said with a shake of her head, not meeting anyone’s eye.
“Don’t apologize,” Jodi said quickly, walking over to her and resting her hand on Deb’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“But it shouldn’t have happened. I still don’t understand how it did happen.” I saw the confusion in her eyes, mingled with a little indignation. I understood how she felt; of everyone I knew, Deb would be the last person I would expect to be vulnerable to something like a possession spell.
“Have you done anything different lately?” I asked.
“No,” she said a little too quickly, as if she had been trying to think of that very same thing. She stood up and started walking around the room, adjusting books and items here and there, an obvious nervous habit.
“Are you sure?” I pressed, getting up from the couch and walking towards her. I rested my hand on her shoulder, happy to feel her normal, warm pulsing aura back in place. “Think, Deb, have you done anything lately that would open you up to attack?”
“Maybe…” she said finally with a sad sigh. Her body seemed to shrink in on itself, her head falling and her shoulders rounding forward. I waited for her to tell us what she meant, not wanting to press her too much. I felt Jodi and Steven stirring behind me in the room, their anxiety pricking my skin like needles. I raised my free hand towards them, silently telling them to calm down and stay quiet. “I’ve been helping my niece,” Deb finally said, her voice not much more than a whisper. I wasn’t sure that Jodi and Steven could hear her.
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully, making sure my voice only carried curiosity and concern.
“She’s coming into her powers, but my sister never had any, so she doesn’t know what to do with her. They called me last month for help to keep her under control and start training her.” Deb looked up, turning her face towards me and I realized her cheeks were wet with tears. Steven came over with a box of tissues in his hand. Deb took a tissue and wiped her face dry. I led her back to the chair and helped her ease into it.
“What’s wrong with that, Deb?” Jodi asked.
“Well, they live in Maine and you can’t do much more than counseling over the phone.” I heard her voice start to shake, so I took her tissue-free hand in both of mine and re-opened the channel between us and started slowly feeding her a soothing comfort, much like a hot cup of tea on a cold and rainy night. Her cheeks flushed and the color came back to her face. “Well, I’ve taught her how to Astral Project so we can really work together, you know, the best we can without being in the flesh.” Dawning comprehension flooded through me with her explanation and I mentally cursed myself for not thinking of it sooner. “I can talk to her all I want over the phone, but you can’t get practical experience by talking and, since my sister didn’t get any of the gifts, she can’t practice with my niece and how is she going to learn without practice?” I could hear the desperation in Deb’s voice, willing us to agree with her.
I could Astral Project with the best of them, but preferred not to do it because of the inherent risks it holds. When you Astral Project, you have a sort of out of body experience. You send your spirit, no, not your soul, out into the other planes and you can communicate with others who are also here on Earth with us and have projected their spirits into an Astral Plane. Some people believe you can also interact with those who have already passed away or angels and even some more sinister entities. It is that last that keeps me from practicing Astral Projection unless it is absolutely necessary and training a fledgling niece does not fall into that category for me.
The danger in Astral Projection that worries me the most is the fact that you have sent your spirit away from your body, along with your consciousness, leaving your body vulnerable back in the tangible world. More than that, as careful as you can be, you’re still risking your spirit’s safety as well. Oftentimes, all it takes is just a simple touch from an evil entity for them to taint you, which as I sat there watching Deb’s face, I knew was what had happened to her.
“Deb, when was the last time you went to see your niece?” I asked, keeping the tone in my voice in check.
“Last night,” she said with a shake of her head. I could taste the disappointment coming off of her like pennies on my tongue. Instinctively, I reached behind me to the bookshelf and blindly grabbed an Agate stone. As soon as I touched it, I knew I had grabbed the right one and I placed it in Deb’s hands. She looked down and nodded, with a small smile, looking up into my eyes. “The student is quickly surpassing the teacher, young grasshopper.” I smiled at her and closed her hands around the stone; Agate is said to protect against evil magic and psychic attack and I knew as soon as I put it in her hand she’d even sleep with it trapped inside her pillow case tonight.
“I think it’s time you just go visit your niece in person, at least until we get Jeremy under control.”
“I think you’re right.”
“We’ll sweep the perimeter of the house and reinforce your shields with our own before we leave,” I said, stepping away from her and drawing Steven and Jodi with me. She managed a nod and I knew she couldn’t trust her voice just now. She rolled the stone over and over in her hands, but I could still feel her discontent and disappointment in herself. There wasn’t much more we could do for her. We walked outside and Jodi set to working on each of the windows and doors while Steven found her inner shield that was wrapped tight over the house. I stepped father out to her property line and began working on the shield set there.
Chapter 14
My plan to go see Deb had been to have her help us try and locate Jeremy before he caused anymore destruction. We had figured out that he was staying off of our radar by flying, but just because that reached the limits of my abilities that didn’t mean it would stop Deb. Deb was also a head member of the local Wiccan Coven and had access to resources that we didn’t. If she couldn’t find him, we’d hoped she would contact her coven for help, but after the trial she just suffered through, I couldn’t bear to ask her for help. Jeremy knew we were looking for him and was trying to keep us away by hitting me hard, by hurting those I loved. I had wanted to tell Jodi and Steven to forget this and put them under lock and key with Jensen, but I knew not one of them would let me get away with that. So we drove over to Jeremy’s house under the pretext of coming to see Jimmy and pretending not to know he was in the hospital just so we could make sure their father was still safe and sound.
After walking through Jimmy’s memories of last night and listening to the angry things Jeremy said, I knew he was punishing people who had hurt him in the past. The next logical target would be his father, but I knew that was the most obvious choice so there was still the possibility that he’d strike somewhere else just to throw us off, like he did with Deb.
We walked up the front walk to the McCormack’s door and waited after pressing the doorbell. Steven was trying very hard not to fidget, as he so often did when he had to lie. The butterflies in his stomach were making mine churn to the point that I had to grab Jodi’s hand and feed off her self-confidence and cool exterior to calm down. Just as we were about to give up and turn away,
the deadbolt lock turned and the door opened a crack.
“Yes?” Mrs. McCormack asked quietly.
“Hello, Mrs. McCormack, my name is Jodi, we’ve met before…” Jodi said, letting the sentence fade, waiting for her to make the mental connection for herself.
“Oh, hello, dear,” Mrs. McCormack said a little more comfortably, opening the door enough so that we could see her clearly now.
“We just wanted to come by and see how Jimmy was doing,” Jodi said with just enough of a smile.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but he’s still in the hospital,” she said with a shake of her head.
“He’s still in the hospital?” I chimed in, concern dripping from my voice. “We didn’t know he was hurt that bad.” I tilted my head ever so slightly, keeping her eyes locked on mine as I very carefully reached out for her, making sure she wasn’t tainted like Deb had been. As far as psychic abilities, she was practically a null, which surprised me a little considering Jeremy’s obvious abilities; powers and abilities are often passed through the maternal side of the family. But other than the utter lack of psychic awareness, she was clean, save for the despair and self-loathing that coated her very being, classic signs of a woman trodden down by her overbearing husband, just one step up from being beaten.
“Oh yes, they’re keeping him for a few days. Considering they had to resuscitate him on the beach, they want to make sure there isn’t any permanent brain damage,” she said that last in a whisper, her voice failing her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry we bothered you, Mrs. McCormack, we had no idea,” Jodi said, laying it on thick and taking a step back, making like she would steer us to leave quickly.
“That’s alright, dear, you didn’t know,” Mrs. McCormack managed a small smile.
“Is Jeremy at home?” I asked quickly, as if the thought had just occurred to me. Mrs. McCormack blinked at me, showing her surprise at the sudden question. “I just wanted to see how he’s doing; I know this was probably a shock to him.” I added a gentle wave of appreciation to wash over her, making her smile at me, appreciating my concern for the less popular of the two brothers.
“After what happened between you two and you’re still worried about him?” she asked, leaning out of the door, closer to my face.
“Mrs. McCormack, I would never have pressed charges against him if it were up to me,” I pushed another wave of appreciation towards her and watched as her face softened under my ministrations. “That was really all up to my parents, me being a minor and all,” I said with a shrug and let her feel the regret I was showing in my face and voice. She reached out and touched my arm tentatively.
“We haven’t seen him in a few days. After he broke out, he didn’t come home. We…” she took a deep, shuddering breath, “we just don’t know where he ran off to.”
“Well, if he does come back, just so you know, I don’t plan on testifying against him, so that should help get him out of jail sooner rather than later,” I said, patting her hand that was still on my arm.
“I’m afraid that may not matter now, after the break out. He’ll definitely get time for that,” she said with a shake of her head before letting go of my arm. “It was sweet of you three to come check on my boys, but I need to get dinner started now.” We said our goodbyes and walked back out to my car.
“Okay,” I said, turning in my seat so I could look at both Jodi and Steven at the same time. “I think we have a lot of work to do. We need to figure out what the hell these things are and how to stop them and where Jeremy’s hiding and we need to watch Mr. McCormack in case Jeremy strikes before we’re ready.”
“How are we going to do all that?” Steven asked.
“We have to spilt up,” I said with a shrug.
“No!” they both shouted at me in unison, but it didn’t startle me. I knew they would hate the idea of working separately, but it was the fastest, smartest thing we could do at this point.
“I know you don’t like to do that, but at this point, I don’t think we have a choice.”
“Shay, we can’t leave you alone. Jeremy’s already tried to get to you more than once. Who’s to say you’re not his next victim instead of his father?” Jodi asked and I could feel her trying to impose her will on me. It’s a strange sort of emotion to feel a mix of stubbornness and anger. When you feel intimidated by someone, that’s when they’re using that ability. I invoked my will and imposed it on her and watched as she shrank instinctively back from me, folding in on herself. I reached out and placed my hand over hers. Don’t do that again, I thought at her very clearly and she nodded, but was still pulling away from me.
“I know I just missed something…” Steven said quietly from the backseat, having fallen back as well when I turned on Jodi, feeling the tension building in the car. I reigned in my power and pulled it back inside myself, letting go of Jodi’s hand and watched as she took a steadying breath.
“Now, I think the best thing to do is have Steven stay here and watch the house. Keep your cell on and call us if anything, anything at all, seems out of the ordinary. Jodi, I think we each need to try to do some research on these things.” I stopped to try and think of the best plan of attack. I sucked in my lower lip and started chewing absentmindedly.
“Shay,” Jodi said tentatively.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe we need to try and contact the faeries. I mean, they did contact you first and warn you, maybe they can help?”
“Yeah, maybe…” I said, thinking over her suggestion. “But I got the impression they had no intentions of helping us.”
“Maybe while you try that, I’ll try and contact some other faeries and see if they can’t give us some ideas about what these things are? If not, then I could try to invoke my Air Element and see if I can’t find Jeremy.” I could hear in her voice she wanted to help to make sure I wasn’t still angry with her over the power play we just had.
“Okay, that’s a good idea,” I said with a nod and I felt the air in the car ease, as if it were holding on to the earlier tension, waiting for it to come again. “Steven, you gonna be okay on a stake out by yourself?” I asked, turning to look at him and feel what he was really feeling in case he tried to lie.
“Yeah, sure. I mean, so long as I don’t look like some creepy stalker.” He tried for a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. The important thing was I could feel the sincerity in his words.
“Don’t worry, we’ll shield you so you’ll blend into the background. Even if someone looks right at you, their eyes should just pass right over you,” I reached out and touched his hand, feeding him a little comfort and extra self-confidence to chase away his fear.
We all got out of the car and darted back across the street and into the bushes that separated the McCormicks’ house from their neighbors. We made sure we were out of sight from anyone passing on the street or may be glancing out of their windows. Once I felt sure that we were safe, I nodded to Jodi to begin. I crouched in front of Steven and laid my hands on the very edges of his aura, feeling its heat pulse against my skin as I connected with his energy on a deeper level than our everyday connection. The air around us began to shift, coming alive with an electric energy as Jodi began working on building a special shield around Steven.
I began whispering the incantation as I plunged my fingers into the layers of his aura, feeling Jodi’s magic prickle around us, and watched as Steven’s shape began to blur right before my eyes. As it became harder and harder for me to keep my eyes on his face, I knew we had accomplished the spell; had we not known that Steven was crouched on the ground in front of us, we wouldn’t have been able to see him at all, dismissing him as easily as any other shadow in the bushes.
Feeling confident that Steven was safe, Jodi and I got into my car and raced away, back towards our own neighborhood. I left Jodi at her house to work secretly in her room trying to use her own Air Elemental abilities to try and find out any clues she could to tell us what we were dealing with. I agreed with her that there was n
o reason to completely rule out the possibility that we may still be dealing with a type of faerie that until now we had never known existed. Jodi had pointed out the possibility that there were shape shifting faeries, so it could be something we were familiar with and they were just concealing their true form, or at least what we thought was their true form. So I left her to it while I was off, back to my house to try and contact the faeries that had made contact with me in the first place. They had warned me once; obviously they cared about our welfare, at least a little.
I slipped into the kitchen while my parents sat in the living room, my mother reading, my father watching the news and reading the newspaper simultaneously. I grabbed a small bowl, the milk from the fridge, and the honey from a cabinet. After mixing the milk and honey together, I quickly and quietly made my way back to my room just to climb out my window into the backyard, careful not to spill any of the milk as I raced to the fence and climbed over, dropping down into the orchard behind our house. I took a deep breath of air, thick with the scent of oranges, relieved I’d made it here without spilling the milk or drawing my parents’ attention.
I walked between the orange trees, the waxy leaves brushing against my arms as I made my way through the rows until I had gone deep enough not to be seen by the houses that ringed around the edge of the orchard. I found the spot that I had been led to by Tegan and felt the slight difference in the energy here than anywhere else in the orchard. When magic has been performed in any way, it leaves a mark behind, whether in the air or ground or both. If you are in tune with nature and magic, you can feel it, taste it, almost see the difference when it is left behind.
I sat on the ground, settling myself as comfortably as I could and set the bowl of honey milk on the ground in front of me. I closed my eyes and took a deep, grounding breath, finding my center and opening myself up to the earth below me and the air around me, surrounding myself in the energy. I reached out to the signature in the air, pulling it around me and calling out to the faeries that had left the signature behind. I could feel the answering pull of the faeries when I summoned them to me, acknowledging me, but they did not come.
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