The Hidden Grimoire

by Karla Brandenburg

  I pulled up my cell phone for the picture of the chart. Ingenuity. Compassion. Growth. Okay. I also didn’t have a signal.

  “I wanted to check before we got started. Make sure we weren’t wasting time. I hope you don’t mind.” She waved a finger toward my phone. “You won’t be able to use that down here.”

  I tucked my phone into my pocket. “This place is great. How did you come to own a castle?”

  “My family used to be logger barons,” she told me while she flipped through the book. “They put aside a fairly sizable fortune, which makes me a trust fund baby. My contribution was to plant trees—hundreds of them—here, on the grounds, to make amends for what my family stripped away years ago.” She stopped on a page and put a finger on the vellum as if to hold her place while she looked at me. “Found it. I want to create the proper atmosphere before we work on your problem.”

  She reached into one of the cubbyholes in the bookshelf. “Rosemary, thyme, cinnamon, and olive oil,” she told me. “We’ll anoint the candle and for as long as it burns, we will work in white light.”

  Except she took a black candle. I wasn’t sure I understood.

  “The white light comes from inside,” she explained, as if she’d read my thoughts—and she likely had, considering my telepathic greeting.

  She mixed the ingredients, then ran her fingers first down the candle and then up again. “Close your eyes and visualize your space being filled with powerful white light.” She closed her eyes and I did as she said. I opened my eyes when I heard her strike a match.

  “Let the magical power of light fill this space, for the good of all and harm to none. So let it be.”

  My reflex was to say amen, but somehow that didn’t seem appropriate.

  “Now,” she said. “Nora tells me this is about the next generation. Tell me about her.”

  I explained how young Georgia was, how her gifts were manifesting themselves, the astral projection, the telekinetic temper. “Is it possible she made herself invisible?” I asked.

  Hannah tilted her head, looking somewhere beyond the cellar. “I’m inclined to believe she wasn’t invisible, more likely overlooked. At three years old, I doubt invisibility is something she’d be mature enough to comprehend. More likely, she chose to hide from something or someone disagreeable.”

  Which made perfect sense. I relayed the “Daddy mad” comments and Sharon’s part of the story.

  “I understand your concern for Georgia,” Hannah said, “but surely you have memories of your own to draw on. Every child born to the gifts faces skepticism, at best, until her mentor can safely guide her.”

  I explained how my parents had died, and how the aunt and uncle who’d taken me in had kept Nora a secret. And then I told Hannah about my first spell.

  “Oh, dear,” Hannah said. “It’s a wonder you didn’t do more damage. Your mother should be credited for putting the fear of God in you. Literally.” She reached for my hand. “I’ll bet you lived all those years afraid of repeating your mistake.”

  “I did. Every time my telekinetic temper manifested itself, I tried to convince myself it was a coincidence.”

  “And yet you knew better.”

  I nodded.

  “Then you don’t have experience to draw from. At least not from a young age. A three-year-old is still learning right from wrong. Developmentally, this could be very challenging to her, and to her parents. You say her father refuses to acknowledge?”

  “Right.” I squirmed. “I’d considered attempting mind control to ease him into the idea, but I’m reluctant to cast a spell on the best of days. I’ve encountered too many instances of unintended consequences.”

  Hannah nodded emphatically. “Quite right. I completely understand. This does present a dilemma. Without you to guide her, your little girl might be tempted to use her gifts irresponsibly, which could result in any number of bad scenarios.” Hannah studied me closely. “How did your parents die?”

  “They were in a car accident.”

  “And how old were you?”

  “Eight.”

  “And you cast your first spell when?”

  “I was thirteen.” My heart stuttered. “Are you thinking I might have done something to cause the car accident?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, no. I had considered the possibility for half a second, but the time frame doesn’t work. I also get the impression you loved your parents very much. At eight years old, you hadn’t yet come to resent them. Am I right?”

  My eyes welled with tears as I nodded again.

  “Bad things happen to good people. If you had been responsible, I’m quite sure you’d be aware of it, the way you are about the bicycle and your friend.” She laughed. “I’m amazed your aunt and uncle escaped unscathed, however.”

  I bowed my head. “They did take me in.”

  “A selfish thing to do, all things considered. I can’t help but wonder if you wouldn’t have had a much happier childhood with Nora.”

  “Maybe, but she had challenges of her own to overcome.”

  “We all do, Brynn. We all do. But let’s get back to Georgia, shall we? What are we going to do about her? Have you consulted a grimoire?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “I have.”

  “And what did you find?”

  To Separate a Witch from her Powers. I didn’t dare repeat what I’d read. The warning with the spell was explicit, and came with a skull and crossbones.

  Hannah leaned toward me, the candlelight glowing in her eyes. The telepathic tingle inside my head was followed by a gasp. “That is quite extreme, I’d have to say. Hopefully, the situation won’t call for anything so drastic.”

  “I’m back to mind control of her father. Convince him without him realizing he needs my help.”

  “I suspect if this little girl is appearing to you when she sleeps, you have more influence with her than you believe.” She returned to the bookshelf and retrieved a clear crystal shaped like a carpenter’s pencil. She pressed it into my palm, stepped back and opened her arms. “We do not have the gift of divination, but we do have strong intuition. Concentrate on your cousin Jason and his daughter. Take this crystal and roll it across the floor. Together, we will see what it might show us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  I opened my palm and gently rolled the crystal across the floor. Hannah held the candle so it refracted in the facets. “I see your cousin and I see a woman.” She closed her eyes. “The family tie is strong. I don’t believe the overarching issue is with Jason, but with the woman—a reckless woman. I see a line between this woman and Georgia, a line with waves and dips like you’d see on an EKG—an unhealthy EKG.”

  Hannah bustled to her bookshelf, opening and closing cupboards, and came back with a small jar, sea salt, and a black stone. “In case you don’t have the materials, we’ll do this while you’re here,” she said. “As a precaution.”

  The way she fluttered about her task sent warning vibes up and down my arms. “In case of what?”

  “Are you right-handed?” she asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  She gave me the black stone. “Hold this.” The jar she’d been holding contained flowers that resembled the verbena I grew in my workshop. She scattered them around the base of the black candle she’d used to create positive energy. “Repeat after me. Release the negative energy from the unhappy person in my life.”

  I did as she said.

  “Close your eyes and envision the negative energy being drawn into the stone. When peace comes to you, bury the stone in the sea salt.”

  Except I wasn’t sure who the unhappy person was. Sharon?

  “I can’t be sure, nor does it matter who it is,” Hannah said, reading my thoughts. “Take the negative energy away.”

  I closed my eyes, focusing on the energy more than where it came from. My hand tingled from the transference until the crystal vibrated.

  “Yes,” Hannah said. �
�Now bury it in the salt.”

  As I covered the crystal, I looked to Hannah. She made a gesture pinching two fingers which I recognized as “a little bit,” then widened the fingers to form an “L.”

  “Copy the gesture,” she said. “Close your eyes and visualize the white light surrounding you, protecting you from negative energy. Associate the gesture with what you feel, what you see, to hold the image of the light.”

  I pinched my fingers the way she had, then widened them into an L. A sense of peace settled over me.

  Hannah spoke in a whisper. “Good. That’s it. If you sense negative energy coming toward you, make the gesture. You will return to this moment, this sense of well-being.”

  “What about Georgia?”

  “Have you woven a protection spell for her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then for now, you need to protect yourself. As long as you are safe, she will be, too.” Hannah made the hand gestures once more, from “little bit” to “L,” and I mimicked it. Immediately, the positive white light surrounded me.

  She patted my arm. “Good. Be aware. Pay attention. All will be well with your little cousin as long as you are there to guide her away from the negative energy. I suspect you’re up against something you’ve not encountered before. Stay in contact with Georgia, either through dreams or these astral projections. In the meantime, guard yourself.”

  As if nearly getting shot or set on fire wasn’t bad enough? Now I had something more to fear.

  Hannah straightened. “A spirit walker?”

  I shook my head, unaware I’d telegraphed so much of my thoughts.

  “There are worse things to fear from a witch than death. Just sayin’.” She tilted her head as she assessed me once more. “You look hungry. You really should have stopped for lunch on your way into town. I think we have brownies in the kitchen if you’d like a snack before you head home.”

  I blinked, trying to keep up with the conversation. “What?”

  Hannah waved a hand in the air. “Everything will be fine, as long as you remain alert.”

  Except now I had to consider what could be worse than death.

  Chapter 24

  On the drive home, I replayed my afternoon with Hannah, trying to process everything I’d learned. My phone chirped with a message notification, indicating I’d regained cell coverage, but I chose to ignore it while I was on the road.

  Nightfall came early in November. I’d used my headlamps for at least half the drive home, and when I pulled into my driveway, the lights were on in my house. Kyle peered out the window, then came to open the garage door.

  “Didn’t you get my message?” he asked as I crawled out of the car.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t check. Is something wrong?”

  He hugged me close, increasing my misgivings. While he escorted me inside, I checked my phone. Two missed calls from him and a voicemail. “Is Nora okay?”

  “To the best of my knowledge. Are you okay? I was worried when you didn’t pick up, and didn’t call me back.”

  Then this was more about his protective streak and less about a crisis I’d missed. “I didn’t have cell coverage while I was in Brown’s Landing, and I wanted to concentrate on my driving on the way home. Should I listen to my message now?”

  “It doesn’t matter now.” He led me to the table and pulled a chair out for me. “How did your visit go?”

  There was that tingle of dread again, the one that said he’d run if I told him about the magic stuff. “Good.”

  “Did she offer any ideas with what to do about Georgia?” he asked.

  Then he had been paying attention. “She seems to think Georgia will be fine, but the woman is the real problem.”

  “Sharon?”

  “She wasn’t sure who the woman was, but Sharon makes sense, don’t you think?”

  “That’s one of the reasons I called. Sergeant Cudahy hasn’t done a notification for Narcy, and because I’d mentioned she had a sister, the body is still at the morgue until they figured out who the sister was. I filled her in and gave her the name of the insurance company where Sharon and Jason work. Sharon’s likely the closest thing Narcy had to family.”

  Sharon, who’d already given me the impression she was potentially unstable. I’d been down this road before with Kyle’s aunt. Would identifying Narcy’s body make Sharon homicidal?

  “You’re thinking about Aunt Polly, aren’t you?” Kyle asked.

  I straightened. Lucky guess? Or was he that in tune to my moods? Seriously, Kyle couldn’t read my mind. Could he?

  “I alerted Sergeant Cudahy to our conversation with Sharon at the mall yesterday,” he went on. “I told her we had questions.”

  All right, he was reading my mind. Not the way Nora did, but he knew me well enough by now to intuit my thoughts. His gaze was steady, patient. Waiting for me to respond. I didn’t know what to say.

  “You have a way of reading people,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll want to talk to Sharon again, especially if your meeting today suggested she might cause trouble. I want to be with you when you do, make sure she doesn’t do anything you might not be expecting.”

  I shuddered, but still wasn’t sure what to say.

  “And I don’t want you talking to her alone.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I guess I can’t argue with that. Will Sergeant Cudahy tell us when she’s made the notification?”

  “Yes.”

  Well. This had certainly been an enlightening day. I nodded my approval to Kyle’s plan.

  “Anything more I should know about your meeting today?” he asked.

  Oh, nothing other than casting a few spells, reading the runes, typical witch stuff. He deserved an answer. “She shared her experience with me, gave me some ideas.”

  Kyle met my gaze once more. “Whether what you do is magic or a keen sense of observation, I can be a sounding board—I’m here for you.”

  Wow. He really could anticipate my thoughts. His skills seemed to have sharpened over the time we spent together, and especially since we’d gotten back together. The idea took my breath away, both because of the closeness we shared and because it made me feel vulnerable someone knew me so well.

  Kyle leaned toward me, his forearms resting on his knees. “Brynn. You know you can trust me, right?”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You did lie to me that night you said you were out with Lucas.”

  He cringed and bowed his head. “I did.”

  I covered one of his hands with mine. “I trust you.”

  He studied me a moment longer, giving me the opening to share—a police tactic? I’d already said enough, and as open as he might be to hearing about spells and magic potions, I was confident he got the gist.

  “How about we walk into town and get dinner at Jose’s Cantina?” I suggested.

  He took my face between his hands, leaned forward, and kissed me. “Sounds great.”

  We spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing. I set aside my concerns for the workshop and the grimoires. We tossed around ideas for the wedding, without the pinches of doubt that had plagued me in the past.

  Later, we fell asleep in each other’s arms, and I relished one of those rare moments when I was completely content.

  I woke in the dark and sat up to check the clock. A little after midnight. With a glance around the room, I found what had woken me. Georgia’s wavering form stood in the corner. Ash kneaded the blanket at the foot of the bed, purring loudly, turned in a circle and lay down.

  “Trouble sleeping?” I whispered.

  She had her thumb stuck in her mouth, her sock monkey hanging from her other hand. “Mommy can’t play with me. Can I play with you?” she said around her thumb.

  “Of course, you can.”

  “Daddy says no.”

  Well, there was that. I pulled my knees to my chest. “But you can talk to me anytime you need to, just like now.”

  The thumb came out of her mouth and she smiled. She faded away
and I drew a deep breath.

  I had to talk to Jason.

  Behind me, Kyle sniffled. I turned to see him leaning on an elbow and he swiped at his eyes. “Please tell me she isn’t dead,” he said.

  “She isn’t dead.”

  “Then how?” He motioned with his hand to the corner where Georgia had been standing.

  He’d seen her? “I’m not sure, actually. I think it was astral projection.”

  “Can you do that?”

  Guide her dreams. “I don’t know. Maybe? I might have the one time.” The breath froze in my lungs. Was this one step too far for him?

  He heaved a sigh. “I thought... she looked like a...” He leaned across and pulled me into his arms. “You’re sure nothing’s happened to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Jason know she can do that?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He rested his forehead against mine. “You need to talk to him. He needs to know.”

  I nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  Since we were both awake, Kyle took advantage of the opportunity to show me how much he loved me once more, confirmation enough for me that Georgia’s appearance hadn’t changed Kyle’s feelings.

  We cuddled up to go to sleep, but my mind raced with the conversations I knew were forthcoming with both Jason and with Sharon.

  Chapter 25

  After Kyle left, I busied myself in the home workroom to catch up on anything I’d neglected the night before.

  Humming, I was in an extraordinarily good mood as I checked a batch of soap and poured a couple of candles. I mixed special orders, but hesitated when the book opened to one that included castor oil.

  On cue, Nora called.

  “Luke, I sense a disturbance in the force,” she said in a character voice when I answered.

  I laughed. “I suppose I’m having qualms about the special order.”

  “The book opened to the potion? Not something you went looking for?”

  “Right. I wasn’t sure I’d need anything today, but then the books appeared, and this recipe...”

  “Castor oil.” As if she was standing by my shoulder.

  “Yes.”