I stroked Ash, until I could distinguish the shapes outside the window as something other than dark outlines. A family of raccoons ambled into the woods—signs the sun was putting in its appearance. My heart hammered. With my history of casting spells, I hesitated, worried about what might go wrong, and yet the grimoire guided me to do so. While tracing the spiral on the mirror, I recited the verse, then closed my eyes and drew a calming breath.
The sense of someone behind me was so strong, I nearly fell off my stool when I turned around. Kyle stood in the workroom doorway, pale in the early morning light.
“I was worried you’d had another nightmare,” he said.
How much had he seen? “No.”
He approached slowly and I waited for the rebuke, the condemnation that came from seeing the real me in action. Instead, he pulled me to my feet and kissed me.
His voice was deep and gravelly from sleep, or desire, or both. “Do you know how sexy you look right now?” He brushed my hair off my face, his gaze fixed on mine. “The way the light catches your eyes should frighten me, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make me want you—right here, right now.”
A giggle erupted. Not quite a condemnation, but also not the response I’d expected after he’d witnessed me casting a spell.
Fifteen minutes later we moved to the sofa in the living room where we snuggled beneath an afghan to keep warm.
“You don’t know who you’re up against?” Kyle asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Then how do you know they’re against you?”
I twisted to look into his face. “The question was how to help Georgia, but when I went looking for the answer, Hannah told me to guard against a reckless woman.”
“Hannah being this friend of Nora’s?”
I nodded. “And none of this is freaking you out?”
“I think it’s kinda cool.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great. You love me because I’m a freak.”
“No, I love you because you have a good heart. You care about people. You’re strong and brave and...”
I held up a hand to stop him. “Enough, already.”
He laughed. “You asked.”
“Which brings about another thing that has me worried. All of this...” I waved an arm toward the workroom, “you can’t arrest someone and lock them up, or shoot at a bad guy. Narcy was insidious, and there’s no saying there isn’t someone else like her who can circumvent your defenses.”
“But you can, and we’re a team. I have faith in you, Brynn. Have faith in me, too.” He shot a glance at the sun filtering in through the bay window beside the dining table. “And now, I need to get ready for work, and I suspect you do, too.” He leaned his forehead to mine. “You’ll call me if you identify this woman?”
“Okay.”
“We’re in this together.”
For all the times we’d skirted talking openly about my gifts, my heart swelled knowing he had seen me using my talents and not been frightened away. His words meant more to me than I could say.
Kyle left to get dressed, and I returned to the workroom, where I had several special orders waiting to be mixed. By the time I’d finished, packed them, and gathered Ash, I was ten minutes late.
The sun shone bright in a crisp blue sky, icy clouds drew an occasional swirl against the backdrop. Everything in line of sight came into sharper focus, with the exception of the people walking the sidewalks. Each of them was surrounded by colored light. I stopped, taken by surprise at this new development until I realized it was their auras, shimmering around them. Part of the unmasking spell?
No one was waiting when I arrived at the shop. I opened Ash’s basket and put out food for her in the backroom before I readied the store for the day. When Cassandra walked in, the light surrounding her stuttered and changed, like a soap bubble floating in the air.
“Sorry I’m late.” She set her coffee cup beside the sewing machine, tugged off her coat and sat down. Only then did her aura settle into a soft shade of green, reflecting her creativity and practicality.
“I was late, too,” I told her.
Her cheeks were flush with color. She hadn’t yet met my eye. Surely Cassandra wasn’t the woman I needed to be wary of, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.
I hovered beside the sewing machine, watching her work, until she stopped, turned and looked up at me.
“Yes?” she asked.
I smiled, met her gaze. Dark brown eyes exaggerated by black liner and mascara against creamy skin. No tell-tale glow aside from the just left my man radiance. She and Lucas were clearly moving forward. “Noticing the shine around you,” I said.
Her cheeks reddened further. “It’s the cold.”
“Uh-huh.” No secrets to unmask there. I returned to the counter, unpacked my special orders and lined them up.
Cassandra twisted in her seat, watching me. “You’re awfully happy this morning. Dare I ask why?”
I stopped to consider. Kyle’s open acceptance had helped me turn a corner in my doubts. I took a moment to appreciate having him in my life, to find the quiet in the storm.
“I know that look,” Cassandra said. “And no, I don’t need to hear about Sir Galahad this morning.”
I laughed. Cassandra might not share the gifts I’d been born to, but she did have a keen sense of intuition. “Now who’s the witch?” I teased.
She raised her eyebrows and turned to her work.
The day went on uneventfully. The auras surrounding everyone who walked into the shop shimmered without my looking for them. After checking the chart on my phone the first few times, I identified the traits without looking the color up. I didn’t, however, notice a glow in anyone’s eyes.
Hannah called mid-afternoon to ask how my day was going. I told her about the auras and how the world was brighter, as if someone had washed the windows.
“Yes, that’s to be expected. Anyone standing out for you?”
“Not so far. The two people I need to see are the two people I’m least likely to run across,” I told her. “Unless LeAnne decides to come shopping again, and Jason isn’t going to encourage her to do so. Sharon moved to Madison as far as I know, and I may never see her again.”
“There’s one more thing we could try, if you don’t mind driving to the castle this weekend. I have a couple of groups coming in for retreats, so I can’t get away. I’m concerned about the little girl.”
So was I. “How about Friday night?”
“I’ll look for you then. If you run across anything noteworthy in the meantime, let me know.”
“I’ll keep you in the loop.” I’d started out the day hoping for a quick answer to my problem, expecting the reckless woman to make herself known to me. Did I want to track down Sharon and LeAnne, if for no other reason than to rule them out?
“Brynn, I wouldn’t have suggested the spell if I didn’t think it was important,” Hannah said, as if she’d detected my hesitation. “Considering what you’ve already been through, you need to keep your eyes open.”
Flashback time, except all I felt was a twinge of anxiety. I raised a hand to my nose, inhaling the lavender-scented soap I’d used. That, along with the amethyst ring Hannah had given me, seemed to do the trick.
For now.
Chapter 35
Over the next couple of days, I was able to read my customers’ moods as they walked into the store, see auras around everyone, to the point where I almost stopped noticing them. No one stood out as the “reckless woman” Hannah had warned me about.
On Wednesday, LeAnne strolled into the shop. She wore her glasses today.
“Shouldn’t you be home resting?” I asked, meeting her at the door.
“Follow-up with the doctor,” she said. “I stopped in to see what you’re doing this weekend. Jason has a work thing and I’d love the company. Will you come over?”
I stepped back to assess her—an orange aura, indicating she had a zest for life. A go-getter. A thrill-seeker. I hadn�
��t seen that side of her. I checked her eyes, tawny brown behind the glare of her glasses. “What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“Dinner Friday night?”
“I’m sorry, I have plans on Friday. Will Jason be gone all weekend? How about Saturday?”
“Saturday would be great,” she said.
“I can’t wait to see the new baby, and I miss Georgia.” A tug of anxiety pulled at me. I hadn’t seen Georgia since the baby was born. Could she forget me so easily? “The kids are both okay?”
“Georgia’s like a little mother to Remy. She adores her baby brother.”
The muscle in my eyelid ticked with another jolt of unease. The last time I’d seen Georgia, she’d been comforting the baby while LeAnne called for Jason to take care of him. The negative trait of an orange aura was recklessness and a tendency to be self-centered. Was I projecting what I hoped to see on LeAnne? She’d given birth a few days before. Judging by her slow gait, she was still healing from her ordeal. Georgia was obviously well-cared for, loved. I had no reason to suspect LeAnne wouldn’t care for her son—Remy—as well.
“If you want to take the afternoon on Saturday, I can cover the store,” Cassandra offered. “Not like we’re in the middle of tourist season here.”
“Oh, that would be great,” LeAnne said. “Can you?”
“Let’s shoot for two o’clock,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I stared out the window as she left and wrote off my hesitations as concern over Jason’s attitude toward me. The last thing I needed was another visit from him threatening me with a restraining order, but LeAnne had invited me. Raising my chin, I nodded after her. LeAnne and I could be friends—family. Jason would have to deal with it.
I hadn’t seen anything “off” about LeAnne—no glow to her eyes. The accusations Sharon had flung at her didn’t add up. If LeAnne had gifts like I did, she could guide Georgia without my help. Which led me back to trying to identify the reckless woman. Sharon was Narcy’s sister. Guilt by association? Her story had been pretty convincing when we’d met at the pub.
“You going to tell Kyle?” Cassandra asked, standing closer than I expected her to be.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a family like that,” she said. “You’d think growing up together you would have learned to work through your differences.”
“To be fair, Jason left for college a year or two after I arrived. For the short time we lived under the same roof, he was at the age where you make yourself scarce at home—high school.”
“Which makes it even crazier he has such an axe to grind with you.”
No kidding. Outside the window, LeAnne eased into her car. “Some people like sharp axes, I suppose.”
Cassandra patted me on the shoulder. “At least you found your way to family who loves you.”
“To be sure.” I shot her a smile. “Who knows? With his wife’s help, I might win over my cousin, too.”
“I have no doubt.”
When Friday rolled around, Kyle picked me up early from work for the drive to Brown’s Landing and my meeting with Hannah. We’d decided to stay the night at the conference center rather than drive home, and made sarcastic jokes all the way about staying in a castle, a princess and a knight in shining armor.
After we checked in, I introduced Kyle to Hannah, and once he was assured I was safe under her protection, he retreated to our room to wait. Hannah led me to her private office once more, down the stone steps and into the dimly lit cellar room.
“Nothing?” she asked.
I settled into an armchair. “Nothing. LeAnne stopped in the shop the other day. No telltale glow in her eyes, nothing out of the ordinary in her aura.” Unless the orange meant she was reckless, but I hadn’t seen her do anything to make me believe that might be true.
“And the white light. That’s still there when you call on it?”
I pinched my fingers together, then widened them, the way she’d shown me. The sense of well-being settled over me. “Still there, except the last time I went to Georgia, the white light seemed agitated, sort of like storm clouds, and Georgia didn’t seem to know I was there.”
“You said she wasn’t sleeping though, right? That she was tending to her brother?”
“Right.”
Hannah went to the bookcase and fingered her way across the spines until she pulled a book from the shelf. “And the unmasking spell? You’re still seeing things more clearly?”
“Along with everyone’s auras, without trying.”
“The spell only lasts a week. You’ll have to recast it on Monday if nothing turns up before then.” She carried the book and sat opposite me. “I have to tell you, ever since Nora called me in on your problem, I can’t shake the sense there’s something off.”
“No crystal ball we can consult?” I joked.
“We can’t see the future,” she said. “Some things have to play out on their own.”
Right. She’d said that before. “Well, then, the only reckless woman left to consider is Sharon, and she’s moved away. Maybe we have to wait for whatever is meant to happen.”
“Without a doubt, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared the next time you run into a situation like you encountered with the last witch. I’m concerned you might be facing a stronger adversary than we suspected, especially considering the spell the grimoire keeps showing you.”
I shivered and crossed my arms.
“When’s the last time you saw your aunt?” Hannah asked.
“Nora? A couple of days ago?”
“No. Your other aunt.”
I blinked, not sure I understood. “Aunt Theresa? Three years ago. Surely you don’t think she has anything to do with this. She’d be a happy woman never to have anything more to do with me.”
As Hannah opened her book and flipped through the pages, a phone rang. In the dimly-lit chamber, Hannah walked toward the table at the end of the bookcase and answered the call. She raised her eyebrows and glanced at me. Her eyes reflected the flickering candlelight. “We’ll be right there.”
“If you have work you need to do,” I said, rising from my seat, “Kyle and I are staying over. We can finish this later, or tomorrow morning.”
“That was Kyle on the phone,” she said. “Sharon is here.”
Chapter 36
Hannah led me down the corridor to the dining room. Kyle hung back in the shadows beside the entrance.
He kept his voice low as we neared. “They’re having dinner.” He nodded toward the dinner crowd.
Sharon. And Jason.
“LeAnne told me Jason was away on business,” I whispered.
“Does he work for Wisconsin Global Insurance?” Hannah asked.
“Yes.”
“They’re here on a retreat.”
“Which explains why she’s here, too,” Kyle said. “You did say they worked together. What’s your impression?”
I inched behind the wall and peered around, trying to stay out of Jason’s line of sight. Sharon stared at her plate, pushing food around. Jason chattered on about something.
“Not the cozy meeting I would have imagined,” I said. “She looks like she might burst into tears at any moment, and quite frankly, he looks oblivious.”
“What else do you see?” Hannah asked.
While Sharon’s aura had shifted to a grayish blue—melancholy—Jason’s aura was hard to see. Obfuscated. “I can’t tell in the low lighting, but his aura looks brown.”
“Very good,” Hannah breathed. “Do you understand what that means?”
I shook my head. “It isn’t on my color chart.”
“Brown means he’s conflicted. Confused.”
I held back a snigger. “Hello, other woman.”
“No,” Hannah said, laying a hand on my arm. “It’s more than that. I’m wondering if he’s bewitched.”
Kyle stiffened beside me. “You can tell by looking at him?”
I lo
oked closer at Jason’s face, hard to see from this distance and in this lighting. Had I missed it all the other times I’d seen him? Then again, all the other times I’d seen him, he’d been angry with me for one thing or another. The one time he’d been happy was in the hospital, when he’d told Jeannine about the baby. Even then, in a moment of joy, there had been a glazed look in his eyes.
I straightened and took a step back. “Then it isn’t Sharon,” I said.
“Not judging by the somber look on her face,” Hannah said. “But I’m guessing she knows more than she’s letting on.”
Sharon had said LeAnne had bewitched Jason, but I’d seen LeAnne a couple of days ago. Her eyes didn’t glow, even with the unmasking spell. “I’m not so sure.”
“It seems an opportunity has presented itself.” Hannah extended her arm, inviting me to walk into the dining room.
“He’ll kill me,” I said.
“Don’t talk to him. Focus on her. If she is masking her true self, I won’t know. You, on the other hand...” She glanced at Kyle.
“There’s a table next to them,” Kyle said. “We can pretend we’re here for dinner.”
Hannah raised her voice and grabbed two menus. “I can show you to your table.”
Sharon looked up as we approached, her forehead creasing with her frown. Jason hadn’t stopped talking, and as we got nearer, I heard the words annuity and long-term care.
Kyle pulled out a chair for me, then sat before Jason finally noticed us.
As expected, he reacted poorly. He jumped up from his chair. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Kyle said politely.
“Oh,” Hannah said. “Do you know each other? What a small world.”
I focused my attention on Sharon, checked her eyes. Lots of misery, no glow.
Jason’s face turned crimson as if he likely recognized what his dinner with Sharon looked like. “We’re here for work.”
“Hannah is a friend of mine,” I replied. “We were looking at the castle as a possible wedding venue and decided to come over for the night.”
Jason settled into his seat. “I think we’re about done anyway. Can I get my check?”
The Hidden Grimoire Page 16