Heart of the Secret: A Witches of Lane County Novella

by Jody A. Kessler

  “Is this about your mom?” she asks as she follows me into the room.

  “Tori, I’m really not in the mood,” I say as I walk over to Estella’s habitat. As I peek inside I see that she’s hiding inside her cave lair. Tori doesn’t know the habits of my little furry friend, but the lie was worth a try to get her to leave me alone.

  Glancing over at my cousin, I silently implore her to understand this is out of my control and I can’t say anything about my true motivations.

  Tori spins in a slow circle, taking in my mini apartment with careful attention.

  “You’ve made some changes since the last time I was up here,” she says. “I like the lights and the new curtains. And what’s this? New bed clothes? Trying to seduce your man?” She giggles. “That’s pretty risqué for you, isn’t it?”

  “Would you please leave?”

  “Nope. I want to hear every sexy detail about you and Rook, and what he likes to do to you under that seductive new bedspread.”

  “Umm…” I stall. “You’re asking for the duct tape again. Over your mouth.”

  “Yeah, right,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I knew you were full of bullshit when you said you had to rush up here to take care of your weird little rodent, so spill it already and I’ll get out of your hair. I’ll be the only thing to leave that nest around your head.”

  She points at the wild array of hair surrounding my face. “I think you have some breakfast and lunch and a kitchen sink stuck in that mess.”

  Reaching up I remove a few sunflower seeds and then shake out what appears to be bird food, and possibly some croissant crumbs, then look away from my smirking cousin.

  “Come on, Aspen. I can tell something is up and since you won’t tell me how Rook is a total freak in the sack, you’re going to have to share some news with me. I’m bored to death out here. I don’t know how you can stand living so far away from everything.”

  “I love living in Lane County. I don’t know how you stand all the noise and traffic in the city. And besides, you know my business centers around the horses.”

  “I know. I just like giving you a hard time.”

  “Why are you here, anyway? I heard your mom start to say something about your own breakup—”

  “There’s no breakup,” she says too quickly.

  I toss her a disbelieving glance over my shoulder, and then turn toward my desk.

  “I’m allowed to come home whenever I want. Just because I needed a break from my condo and my latest phenomenally hot boyfriend doesn’t mean a breakup is involved.”

  “Huh,” I snort, and place my mom’s journal down on the desktop like it’s something fragile or explosive—which in all truth, it practically is.

  “First of all, I would love to hear every torrid detail about your latest man adventures but I don’t have time. And for the record, Rook isn’t a freak in bed, he’s—”

  “That’s really too bad,” Tori interrupts me again. “Witches are almost always more inventive and skilled in the sex department. I would have thought that with his sensitivities he’d have you screaming his name and bucking like a newly saddled wild horse—”

  I cut her off. “Whoa, there! Clamp that dirty mouth of yours shut. I’m seriously not talking about this right now,” I say half amused and half appalled at where her mind is at.

  She makes herself comfortable in my armchair and gives me another smug grin.

  I narrow my eyes at her in warning.

  “I’m only trying to take your mind off the heavy stuff. People pay a lot of money for therapy treatments that are a lot less effective than what I’m doing for you,” she says with a half-hearted shrug of her shoulders. Then she rubs at the shoulder that took most of the crunch in the door.

  “Just keep telling yourself that,” I say with a derisive shake of my head. Taking a seat at my desk, I stare at the wall calendar and at the star chart posted on the wall in front of me.

  The timing is everything. My mom had the correct month and some of the other details aligned to unwork the spell, but she was off by exactly a quarter of a century. She calculated the reversal of the spell and she was confident she could adjust the date by using magic. It’s now twenty-five years later and this year is the five hundredth anniversary of Madeleine’s curse. My mom succeeded in part, but not in full. Her confidence was absolute and it probably killed her.

  I need to think. What I don’t need is Tori’s obnoxious—although well-meaning—distractions. Rising from my chair, I set my shoulders back and take the bull by the horns. I grab Tori by the arm and pull her to her feet.

  “Hey!” she says.

  “Now you get to leave me alone.”

  “But I’m coaching you on how to deal with the ups and downs of being a Morgan in love.”

  I drag her across the room. She may be similar in height, but I wrangle horses on a daily basis. Tori can never match me in strength. Unfortunately, she makes up for it in being fast with her magic.

  She glances around the room and then barks out a spell. “Thy hands will be removed from my blessed body and thy captor will be bound by the leash of the dog!”

  The feeling of having my hand forcibly torn away from her arm is bad enough, but what comes after is just plain humiliating. I’m so distracted and lacking in sufficient sleep—not to mention the mental anguish of my break up with Rook and the new discoveries about my mom—that I can’t respond fast enough. Basil’s dog leash jerks off the hook by the door and flies across the room. Tori does a little flip with her hand and the leash snakes around my middle and then wraps quickly around both of my wrists. It cinches tight, pulling my hands behind my back, and just as Tori planned, when I try to pull free, the tension on the leash transfers to my stomach and increases discomfort exponentially.

  I groan against my restraints.

  “Chair!” she says with another flick of the wrist.

  My desk chair slides across the floor, bunching up the throw rug in its wake, and then hits me in the back of the knees so that I land heavily on the seat.

  “Next time I offer you some help, you should take it,” she suggests while scowling and massaging the spot on her arm where I had a hold of her.

  “You’re wasting your magic just to torment me,” I point out.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m having fun doing it, too,” she says, and walks over to the door to let Basil in.

  “Basil, come here,” I say as I see my dog saunter in wearing a fresh coat of dirt and grime.

  “Are you ready to tell me what’s going on with you and that little book, or do you need to suffer a little more first?”

  “This is ridiculous. You know I can undo the knots whenever I want to.”

  “Oh, really?” she says, with doubt and challenge crinkling the corners of her eyes.

  “Come on, Tori. I don’t have time to play games with you. I need some time alone to sort something out.”

  “And what something would that be?” she asks as she settles back into the armchair and crosses her legs, foot bouncing with anticipation. She leans forward, keeping her pale green eyes focused on me.

  I press my lips together in a stiff line and try not to let anything show on my face. Secrets divulged could destroy everything. My mom clearly wrote that no one can know and severe consequences, such as death, would be likely if the secrets were exposed.

  “Your non-answers speak volumes? Let me try this another way.” She taps a manicured finger against the point of her chin and is blissfully silent as she looks up at the angles of my attic ceiling.

  I twist in the chair and pretend to stare at the desk, or the wall, anything, while Basil, my dearest doggy companion, goes straight to work on his leash. Having magical blood has its benefits, but having magical talents related to animals can be even better. Without having to use my own power, Basil knows that my being tied up isn’t in our normal routine. He loosens the knots for me with his teeth.

  “Is there something perhaps going on of which you cannot
speak aloud?”

  I remain silent.

  “Very good,” Tori says. “And don’t think I don’t know what your mutt is doing over there.”

  “Whatever,” I say as I feel the leash slip enough to free one hand.

  “I’m letting you go because I think you’ve learned your lesson,” she tells me.

  “When you’re not expecting it, you’ll have paybacks for this little dog leash trick.”

  “Oh, I’m counting on it,” she says with a smile.

  I grit my teeth as I remove the rest of the leash. Then I bend down and thank Basil for doing a good job. He kisses my hand and then I move over to the calendar. Tori isn’t going to leave so I’m just going to have to ignore her the best I can.

  “Can you write down the information I want to know, so I can try and help you?”

  I stare at the month on my witch’s calendar. A magical calendar is not like a calendar you buy at the mall. It’s altogether more complicated, with revolving planets, stars, sun, and moon signs. There are planting and harvesting dates, gem and mineral collecting times, animals signs, and so much more. It’s a wonderful tool for someone who knows how to read it, but I will venture to say that a non-magical user wouldn’t understand most of what they are looking at.

  The 15th year, on the 5th month, on the 15th day of the waning crescent moon will be the ideal time to break the curse. This will be exactly 500 years after Madeleine’s heart was broken by her lover and fiancé, Henri. My mom tried to put an end to the curse early by constructing a quarter of a century time charm. She succeeded with the charm, but I figure that was just one small piece of the puzzle and it took some of her strength to hold the charm while performing the rest of the spell. I continue to stare at the calendar and then my jaw hits the floor.

  May 15, 2015 is today! The Planting moon is waning and we live next to the ocean! My heart pounds inside my eardrums as I blink at my calendar and let the reality of my situation sink in. My teeth click together as I shut my mouth to keep from screaming out. Tonight is the perfect time in five hundred years to put a stop to Madeleine’s crazy cursed wedding spell.

  Could I follow in my mother’s footsteps and end the suffering of me and my family for good? Do I have enough time to get all the ingredients together? When synchronicity is singing a ballad directly in my ear, how can I ignore it? The journal came to me on the eve of the night when the stars and the universe are in perfect alignment for fixing our family problem. It has to be done, but is it possible? And then there’s the matter of a certain item needed for the spell that makes me shudder. A corvid’s heart. I’m a witch, but that doesn’t mean I will sacrifice the life of an innocent animal. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m capable.

  “If you’re thinking about a viable alternative to being with Rook, and not killing him, like my parents had for a while, I want in on it. I may not believe in happily ever after, but I know it’s painful for the Morgans that do. So tell me how I can help,” Tori says, interrupting my speeding train of thought.

  “I need you to go into the woods and catch a crow or a magpie. A blue jay would work, too,” I sputter, and then close my eyes at the thought of what I have to do to the bird if she actually catches one. “Don’t hurt it. I need it before sundown. That’s how you can help me.”

  “A crow? That’s totally your domain,” she says.

  “Not this time,” I say with a shudder. “I wouldn’t ask if I thought there was another way,” I say swallowing the bile that is rising in my throat.

  The animals I come in contact with are sensitive to my moods and emotions. Crows and corvids in general are extremely sensitive and any bird in that family would stay a mile away from me if they thought I was going to hurt it. Tori, on the other hand, doesn’t have much in the way of empathy toward living creatures that aren’t human. She’s not a monster or a psychopath or anything, she just doesn’t have a sensitivity for animals. But, she’s crafty enough to catch anything if she puts her mind and energy into it. “A nutcracker would be acceptable as well,” I say.

  “Wow, you’re going to get your hands dirty, aren’t you?”

  “There’s nothing else I can tell you,” I say, and bite my lip to keep from spilling the beans.

  Tori seems to finally understand the quandary I’m in, or at least catch the drift of it. She lifts herself out of the chair and takes a step toward the door. “When all is said and done, with whatever you’re working on, will you still be around to pay me back for tying you up?”

  “I hope so,” I say gravely.

  “You better be.”

  “And for the love of the Goddess, don’t let your mom or Aunt Jet know what you’re doing,” I say to her back.

  “Got it,” she says, sounding confident as she leaves my room.

  Chapter Six

  I stole the emblem off Aunt Jet’s motorcycle. If I ruined her bike, she’s never going to forgive me. It’s not only the emblem that’s going to have me paying penance for the rest of my afterlife. I had to sneak Aunt Ivy’s favorite kitchen knife, and I took a credit card out of Tori’s wallet while she was off in the woods on my dastardly errand. Then, I had to find hair, or nail clippings, or any other personal effect from each of the members of my family. This alone, could have me banished from the witching community forever. Collecting samples that contain the DNA of a witch to use in a spell without the witch’s permission is highly illegal. If I could tell my family why I need these things, I’m sure they would give them to me, but because the spell has to stay shrouded in secrecy I can’t just come out and ask them.

  This Madeleine lady really knew how to screw over her family. My mom was totally right in her assessment of the lunatic. Yet, here I am, about to cast a spell that is equally dangerous. It seems to me that holding so tightly to pain and secrets only causes more pain and more secrets, and I’m unbelievably going along with this plan. Did my mom understand the dangers involved? I think she did, but she also thought she wouldn’t fail.

  I pull up on the reins, bringing Snowdrop to a halt. Perry stops behind us and blows a warm puff of horsey breath. We’re loaded with my gear and everything I need to get through the night. I even packed dry firewood and fuel to keep the fire burning in the drizzle and rain. Perry is being a trouper about the hefty saddle bags, but he likes to keep moving.

  “Wait, big guy. We’ll get going in just a second,” I tell him.

  My focus on what I needed to accomplish before nightfall overshadowed the glaring slip-up that I’m letting my confidence drive me forward without really taking the time to consider all the consequences. With my mother’s instructions written down so precisely and carefully, I’m assuming I can accomplish the magic and break the spell. The time constraint is the real reason I’m pushing to get this over with. The moon will be off by thirteen degrees tomorrow night and that’s too large of a difference for me to feel comfortable with all I have to do. This has to happen tonight, or breaking the curse may have to wait another hundred or even five hundred more years. The Morgans can’t continue living this way.

  I stare back at the house across the fields and wonder if my mom stood in this same spot twenty-five years ago and thought about leaving me behind forever. Did she consider the possibility that she wouldn’t see her sisters again? Did she hesitate? Aurora Morgan was confident she could spend one night out on the beach and come home to her newborn baby the next morning knowing her daughter would grow up and marry the man of her dreams. Instead she died in the waves of the Pacific. Could the same fate be headed my way? Is what I’m about to attempt worth risking my life for? Do I want Rook more than I want a life without him?

  As if in answer, I feel the faint trace of magic humming from the journal tucked inside my coat.

  “I’ll be careful,” I whisper as I stare at the faint outline of my house in the distance.

  In the gloom of the drizzly evening I suddenly notice my multi-colored hound dog running at full speed toward me and the horses. I put Basil inside before I we
nt to saddle the horses, but he obviously escaped the confines of the house. Before heading over the dunes to the water’s edge, I wait for him.

  “Stop right there,” I command.

  Basil’s an obedient boy and stops in his tracks, and then sits down on the grass.

  “Go back and do not harass the aunts. I left you a bowl full of dinner and a special bone in your bed.”

  He whimpers pathetically at me.

  “Do it,” I say in my most firm voice. Like the way he knew I shouldn’t be tied up earlier, he also knows something’s afoot. He will do everything in his power to keep me out of trouble. While this is usually a good thing, tonight I need him to stay out of the way while I cast.

  Basil lifts his muzzle and howls a long mournful bawl of rebellion.

  “Go to the house, Basil.”

  He lies down and presses his chin flat to the earth. The red skin of his saggy eyelids seems to hang extra low as every part of him droops with melancholy and stubbornness.

  “If I have to tell you one more time, I will never make you the pumpkin and bacon cookies again.”

  Basil grumbles as he rises and then turns for home. It’s nearly dark now and the house is fading into the condensing fog and fading twilight. I bring my attention back to Snowdrop and click my tongue. As his hooves meet the first sandy dune, I hear Basil howling a sad song in the distance.

  “Don’t listen to him. He’ll be fine when we return in the morning.”

  Perry knickers softly behind me, letting me know he’s ready to keep moving. Then the three of us head toward the waves of the Pacific.

  ∞

  I set up my pop-up wind shelter—no little feat in the blustering winds and the gaining storm—and finish unloading Perry. He’s more than happy to shed the weight I’ve packed on him and all but shivers with joy to be rid of it. After I place the supplies under the lean-to, I lead the horses away from where I will be working and hobble them near the dunes in a spot that is somewhat sheltered from the wind. The rocky cliff to the north should help keep some of the gusts from battering them through the long night ahead. Since the chance for increasing rain is about one hundred percent, I quickly rub them down with a second coat of a drying powder of my own magical devising. It will keep them mostly dry for about ten to twelve hours.