Holly covered her mouth and tried not to spit out her gum.
Jax frowned. “What? I haven’t stayed in this room for forever.”
Alba looked down at Jax. “Sometimes, on the very rare occasion when I’ve somehow forgotten how young you are, Shorty. I see crap like this, and I remember, and it all makes sense again.”
Jax plumped out her bottom lip, crossed her skinny arms across her chest and stomped her little witchy foot down on the ground. “Do you girls want to look for my grandmother or not?”
“We do,” I said and threw my arm over Jax’s shoulder. As much as I wanted to tease Jax for her choice in people to idolize too, I knew that her feelings were too easily hurt to take much joking around. “Where do we start?”
“I really don’t know,” sighed Jax. “Aunt BethAnn’s suites are in the north wing. This floor is for my mom and me. Uncle Merrick’s rooms are upstairs. If she’s here, I have no idea where my grandmother would stay.”
Alba nodded as if it were settled. “Then we search all the rooms until we find your grandmother.”
“That could take a while,” said Jax uncomfortably. “What if my mother comes home?”
“She’s not going to come home, Shorty. You worry too much.”
“Well, what are we going to do if we find her?” asked Holly, nibbling on her nails.
Alba furrowed her eyebrows. “Hopefully we’ll find her room, then we can snoop around a little. Maybe we’ll find a clue about her motives. And if we actually find her then we’ll play it casual and ask her what she’s doing in Aspen Falls.”
Jax frowned. “I’m not sure I can play it casual, Alba. I’ve never even met my grandmother.”
“One thing at a time, alright?”
Jax looked uptight.
Alba put a hand on her shoulder. “No worries, Shorty. We’ll wing it. Everything will be fine,” said Alba. “Come on, let’s go.”
Jax led us out of her bedroom and down the rug-lined hallway of her and Sorceress Stone’s floor. Portraits of long-dead witches lined the walls. We poked our head into every bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room along the way until we ended at a tapestry-covered wall.
“Looks like a dead end,” sighed Alba turning around.
Jax shook her head and pushed Alba aside. With one hand, she pulled the tapestry away from the wall and shoved us girls behind it. In the darkness, I could barely make out a sliver of light glowing off the floor. Jax burrowed past us, and we heard a click come from somewhere in the darkness. A creak sounded, and we realized she had unlocked a door behind the tapestry, and within seconds we were all walking up another flight of stairs.
“This goes to Uncle Merrick’s floor. I’m not allowed up here.” Jax’s voice shook as she spoke.
Alba made a face. “Really? You’ve never been up here?”
Jax gave a little shrug. “I snuck up here once when I was little, but my Uncle Merrick came out of his room and scared me so badly that I never came back. Just please, be very, very quiet,” she begged.
At the top of the stairs, Jax opened another squeaky door and one by one we filed onto the third-floor of the Stone residence. Replacing the blush pinks and pale greys of the second floor, the third-floor carpets deepened into dark greys and navy blues and the wallpaper and draperies had become far more masculine as well. Every nerve in my body was taught as we slid carefully down the hallway, poking our noses into every nook and cranny, looking for any sign of Augusta Stone, and praying that we wouldn’t run into Sorcerer Stone or one of his sisters.
When we’d gotten to the last room in the hallway and found nothing, Jax put one hand on the octagon-shaped, glass knob with the wide, stepped brass base. “This one is Uncle Merrick’s,” she whispered. Her hand tremored even as she spoke, but she just couldn’t bring herself to turn the handle. “I can’t do it,” she finally said before removing her hand. “What if he’s in there?”
Alba puffed air out her nose and shoved Jax backwards. “Move it, Shorty. I’ll do it.”
Alba turned the knob and pressed the door open. She stuck her head in the narrow gap and peered inside. Immediately we heard a gust of air as she sucked in her breath. “Oh my god,” she whispered.
“What?” I hissed. “What is it?”
She pulled her head back across the threshold and began to shut the door.
“Was Merrick in there,” I asked, preparing my legs to run.
She stared at me, wide-eyed, and shook her head. “Nope. He’s not in there.”
I looked back at the room curiously. “Well was Augusta in there?”
She shook her head again. “Nuh-uh.”
Holly’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Then what did you see?”
With her hand against the small of my back, Alba shoved me back down the hallway. “Nothing to see here. Let’s go.”
I put the brakes on and turned to face her. “What did you see, Alba?”
“Trust me, Red. You don’t want to see what I just saw in that room.”
My mind swirled. What had she possibly seen in Merrick Stone’s room that I wouldn’t want to see?
“Step aside,” I hissed at her, my mouth setting into a rigid line.
She let out the breath she had been holding and crumpled dramatically. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya, Red.”
I stood in front of the room, sucked in a breath of courage, and threw the door open. Jax, Holly, Sweets, and Alba stood behind me, gazing over my shoulder.
“Oh my god,” I whispered as a shiver ran down my arms and legs. “What is this?”
28
Holly shoved two hands into the base of my shoulder blades, and I tumbled into Merrick Stone’s bedroom followed by the rest of my friends. Jax brought up the rear, and closing the door behind us, I heard her gasp the second she saw what Alba and I had seen.
Every square inch of Merrick’s over-sized walnut dresser was covered with a dozen or more framed pictures of my mother. Some of the photographs were just of her at various ages, others were of her and Merrick, and two were recent pictures of my brother and my mother. I felt my body flush with annoyance when I realized that one of the pictures was of the three of them standing in front of a lilac bush – like they were a happy little family unit. I could see Reign’s long arm out as if he’d been the one to take the selfie. Something deep inside me nearly squeezed the lunch from my stomach, and I had to swallow back the bile that was building at the base of my throat.
My eyes swept the room. Assorted portraits of my mother adorned his walls, and his bedside stand featured a portrait of my mother and him when my mother was nothing more than a teenager. The photograph had to have been taken before Reign was born because my grandmother had separated them before my mother even knew that she was pregnant with my brother.
I picked up a small stack of unframed pictures on his nightstand. The one on top was a photo of my mother walking Chesney along the street. I flipped it over. He’d written a date on the back of it. It was taken only a few weeks ago. My mouth hung open as I looked at all the pictures.
“Wow,” breathed Holly. “Can you say stalker?”
“Yeah, this isn’t creepy or anything,” agreed Alba, furrowing her eyebrows together.
“Wait until I tell my mother about this,” I said. “She’s literally not going to believe me.” I pulled out my phone and took several snapshots of the incredibly weird tribute to my mother. I hoped that by showing her what I was seeing, she’d drop any hopes of ever being with Merrick Stone again. This was just too bizarre for words.
“We’ll check Aunt BethAnn’s wing next. She stays on the second floor, but no one lives on the third floor there. Maybe that’s where Grandmother is staying,” suggested Jax, pulling her uncle’s door shut behind us.
“Maybe that should have been the first floor that we checked then,” growled Alba through gritted teeth.
“Sorry,” said Jax. “This way.”
This time Jax didn’t lead us down a secret set of stairs. Instead, we went back down the
hallway we’d just covered and took a right down another hallway which led us to a wide curving staircase with ornately carved wooden balusters and a polished, smooth handrail. We were out in the open now.
“Jax,” whispered Alba. “Is this the main stairway?”
Jax nodded. “It’s the only way to get across to the other wing,” she whispered back.
With our hearts pounding wildly, we clung to the long shadows and raced down the stairs as fast as our legs would carry us. I felt exposed and uncomfortable like we could get caught at any second. But the fact that Jax seemed to exude a bit of confidence forced me to fight my fears and allow her to lead us through the wide-open areas to the north wing, and the Black Witch’s personal floor.
In the north wing, we poked our head into every room. And room after room of vintage furniture blurred together, each one as empty of people as the last. There were no signs of suitcases from a visiting long lost granny. I was beginning to think that perhaps she hadn’t told her daughter that she was coming to town after all. And then, we heard noises coming from a room. It was the first sign of life since we’d entered the mansion more than an hour prior.
“It’s coming from the library,” whispered Jax as we inched closer to the closed door.
Holly, Sweets, Jax, and I hid on the right side of the door and prepared ourselves to run if need be. With her back pressed against the hallway wall on the left of the door, Alba pressed one open palm against the door and slowly it swung open. With the door open, the noises intensified, and we could make out the sounds of weeping, sniffling, and choked sobs. Someone was crying in the library.
Still smashed against the wall, Alba lifted a finger to her lips. Slowly, we peered around the door jam. A woman, dressed all in black, sat at a table in the library with her head down on top of her folded arms. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.
Squatted down below us, Jax looked up. “That’s my aunt, come on,” she mouthed, waving Alba to come across the open doorway.
Alba nodded. Sweets and Holly moved first though, and their weight on the wooden floor made a loud creak. I sucked in my breath as the Black Witch immediately stopped crying and looked up sharply. She’d heard the noise. It was too late.
My heart stopped beating in the instant that she made eye contact with me. She was a Sorceress Stone clone. They had the same sharp, thin facial features, the same ice-blue eyes, but BethAnn had straight black hair not white. My eyes widened, and I jolted myself into action, retreating down the hallway behind Sweets and Holly. Jax was right behind me. At the end of the hallway, we turned and saw Alba, still stuck on the other side of the doorway. We motioned her on. Hurry Alba, hurry! I thought anxiously, fearful of what the Black Witch would do to her.
Alba sucked up a lungful of air and then bolted forward, past the open doorway, and down the hallway towards us. Jax ushered us into a closet. Following us in, she slammed the door shut behind us. We all stood there holding our breaths. Waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure. Waiting for the hammer to drop. Waiting for the Black Witch to zap us with her magic. My pulse thrummed in my ears as we all waited with our breath dammed up in our lungs. But the longer we waited, the longer it took for nothing to happen. Slowly, I exhaled. Little by little, the rest of the girls did too. We’d been standing in the deafeningly silent closet for the last five minutes.
“I think we’re safe,” I finally whispered.
Jax winced and gave a little shrug. “Maybe Aunt BethAnn saw me and knew you were all here with me.”
“There’s no way she’s not going to tell Sorceress Stone we were here,” I said in a panic. “We need to make the rest of this tour fast."
Alba opened the closet and peered out into the hallway. “The coast is clear,” she whispered back at us. “Hurry up, let’s go.”
“Now which way, Jax?” I asked as the five of us stood in the hallway.
“Should we try the third floor now? That’s the empty floor where my grandmother might be staying,” suggested Jax nervously.
“Most definitely,” I whispered back. “We have to find her. There’s a reason why she borrowed that spellbook, and I want to know exactly what that reason is!”
The third floor of the north wing looked identical to the second floor of the north wing. We poked our head in room after room once again finding nothing of importance – until we came to the fifth room on the right side of the hallway. Two vintage leather suitcases stood on end against the wall.
“Girls, look,” said Holly, pointing at the bags.
I glanced back at Jax. “Have you seen those before?”
Jax shrugged. “I’m not really allowed in this wing,” she admitted.
“You weren’t allowed on Merrick’s floor either. Isn’t it your house, too?” asked Alba.
“Yeah, but everything’s off-limits. It’s always been that way. That’s why I prefer to just stay in the dorms.”
“So you don’t know if those are your grandmother’s bags then, huh?” I asked, rubbing my chin. I wondered if we dared go inside the room and look inside the suitcases.
Jax shook her head. “I really don’t know.”
Alba looked at me with a wicked smile. “Should we check?”
“It’s what we came for,” I said, sounding surer of things than I felt. “Might as well.”
Nervously, we entered the room. Alba strode right over to the bags and grabbed ahold of the handle of one and discovered how heavy it was when she tried to toss it onto the bed. “What is in there?! It’s definitely not a suitcase of clothes!” she said with surprise. I leaned over to help her lift it, but she put her arms out on either side of her. “Stand back, Red.” She aimed her fingers at the bag and used her powers to lift the suitcase onto the bed.
We all stared at the bag as Alba unzipped it, but then a noise caught our ears.
“JaclynRose!” breathed a very familiar voice from behind us in the doorway.
My heart dropped. I’d know that voice anywhere. Sorceress Stone!
29
Sorceress Stone stood rigidly with her bony shoulders pulled back, her elbows crooked out on either side of her, and her hands on her hips, blocking the doorway. She glowered down her long, thin nose at us with ice-blue eyes that told us there would be no mercy shown today.
The girls all stopped talking and stared up at her as I did. Time seemed to stand still in that first fleeting moment in which sheer panic spiraled down my body.
I sucked in my breath. “Sorceress Stone!”
“Mom!” gasped Jax. “I-I can explain.”
“There is nothing to explain JaclynRose. You invited your snooping friends into my home, and you’ve traipsed them through every room in the house, including your Aunt and Uncle’s quarters even though you know you’ve been expressly told not to bring students into this house. Is there more?”
Jax’s face flushed crimson red before she hung her head and knitted her fingers together in a ball in front of her. “No,” she whispered.
“That’s what I thought. You know, when my sister called and told me that there was a group of students wandering around her quarters, I thought she was off her rocker once again. Imagine my surprise to find you leading the charge!”
“I-I’m sorry Mom,” stuttered Jax.
Sorceress Stone’s head reared back. “It’s Sorceress Stone to you. You asked to be a student at my school. I told you I’d be unable to give you special treatment, and you agreed. You specifically told me you didn’t want special treatment. There are very strict rules foreboding students from trespassing on my personal property, and now here you are, trespassing on my property. Per your request, you will be treated as a student, not as my daughter.”
“B-but this has nothing to do with school,” she stuttered. “I-I just wanted to show my friends where I lived.”
“Lived. Past tense. You haven’t stayed here once during the school year. You didn’t even stay here during the holiday break when the dormitories were closed. You weren’t bringing your friends h
ere to give them a tour of the mansion you were here for another reason. What is it?”
Jax’s head shook wildly. Her eyes were wide like a deer caught in the headlights. “No Mom, there’s no other reason. I just wanted to show them my room and the house. They’re my friends.”
“JaclynRose! Do not insult my intelligence. If you only wanted to show them your bedroom, you wouldn’t have brought them to your aunt or uncle’s quarters, especially since you know both areas are off limits to you. You were looking for something. What is it? I demand to know or suffer the consequences.”
Jax glanced back at us, hoping our eyes would tell her what to do or what to say.
I shook my head at her. We didn’t need Stone knowing the real reason we were traipsing around the castle.
“M-mom, we weren’t…”
“Silence!” raged the tall, thin woman. “Lies. All lies. I despise being lied to!”
Sorceress Stone held up her hand as if she were going to use it as a weapon. Jax winced and looked away, holding up her own hands in front of her face to shield her from whatever magical powers her mother would launch at her. “No, Mom! We were just looking for my grandmother!”
I hung my head and let out a breath.
Sorceress Stone halted her retribution. She was quiet for a moment. “I told you. She isn’t here,” she said. Her tone had softened, but only slightly.
Jax peeked at her mother from between her fingers. “I know, but I didn’t believe you.”
“Why do you think your grandmother is here?”
Alba stepped forward from our pack and pushed Jax back behind her. “Because we know she’s in Aspen Falls.”
Sorceress Stone’s face changed as she looked down at Alba. The curious expression she’d worn only a second before was replaced with righteous indignation. “How dare you, girl. Coercing my daughter into doing something she knows better than to do.”
“We’re only trying to solve a puzzle. That’s it. Jax’s grandmother has the answers we need. That’s it. If you tell us where we can find her, then we’ll leave.”
Witch School Dropout: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #7 Page 20