“Evan killed him!” Amy wailed, “Let me go back!” She struggled against Madilyn and almost broke free. Aunt Lynn looked to Jeffrey.
“Get her out of here,” she instructed him. He took Amy’s arm and when it was obvious that was not enough, he hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her out of the bar. The door I had come through already had a broken lock. They went out the way I had come in.
“Let Madilyn carry Jade out of here,” Aunt Lynn instructed us. “Take her out. We’ll be with you in a moment. We have to make sure Evan can’t follow us.”
I handed my limp, exhausted child-self over to Madilyn. She glanced quickly from Aunt Lynn to me and then carried Jade out after Jeffrey and Amy. I looked to Aunt Lynn.
“Okay, what do we have to do?” I asked her.
“Nothing. I imagine they’re gone already, but I needed a moment to talk to you. You have to leave. I think you’ve done what you came to do,” she placed her hands on my shoulders and kissed my forehead. Her lips felt cool compared to the heat I had just come from.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted, too exhausted to care what she thought of my lack of knowledge.
“Concentrate on where and when you want to go,” she told me, “the same way you concentrate on your other gift. Concentrate on one spot in the room and a portal will open up through time.”
I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket and stared at the place and date. Is this where they had gone? Could it be a trap? I wasn’t sure, but either way, I knew I wasn’t ready.
“But there’s so much I want to talk to you about. So much I want to ask,” I pled.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. She looked at me with pity and exhaustion and grief she had not yet had a chance to feel. She was not around in the time I was returning to for me to have this conversation with her. This was the last time I would see her.
“You can’t stay any longer,” she said firmly. I looked down, not knowing what to say in this moment. I could feel the room heating up. I would have to leave my way, and she would have to leave hers. Then I remembered the backpack. I took it off and held it out to her. She looked perplexed and hesitated to take it from my grasp.
“It’s the family book,” I explained. “I saved it from Evan’s office before we burned it down. You’ll need it, but I will be difficult. I won’t want to study.”
“Thank you,” she said. She hesitated again before walking away.
“What is the last street we live on?” she asked me.
“Magnolia Avenue in…”
“Don’t tell me the city,” she cut me off. “I’ll figure it out, but I don’t want too much information.” She smiled at me now. “I’ll leave something for you in the far northwest corner of the backyard. Dig about three feet down. I love you, Jade.” Then she was gone. Leaving me in the burning building of my past.
I stared at the booth I had been trapped in earlier. I concentrated on Zach’s party, May 2010. Instead of willing fire, I willed a portal. To my astonishment, one appeared. I could see Zach’s room, just the way I left it. I heard the roar of a fire truck getting closer. I felt the heat of the building. I heard timbers from the roof falling all around me. Then I stepped through the portal and collapsed onto Zach’s bedroom floor—the fire and the sirens filling my dreams.
Chapter 5
Light filtered through Zach’s blinds and hit my face where I lay on the floor. I opened my eyes just a bit. I didn’t want to face another day. I wanted to go back to the bar and the fire and just breathe in the smoke—let the flames consume me. It was bad before, knowing, or thinking, the fire I started killed my mother. I never thought anything would hurt more than that. Even when Aunt Lynn’s doctor diagnosed her with cancer, and even when she finally died, I still carried my guilt from that fire around with me heavier than the burden of becoming an orphan once again. This was different. This was worse.
Knowing the truth--I had not caused my mother’s death--did not lessen the pain of having been there and been powerless to save her. I closed my eyes, but each time I did so, I saw the agony on her face, the knife disappearing and her blood dripping to the floor. It didn’t matter I wasn’t the one to cause her death. Seeing her last moments was far worse.
I gritted my teeth against the pain and let the anger I felt toward Cameron and Evan fill my veins, silencing the part of me that longed for the release the flames of that night could have given me. I had a purpose now I had never possessed before. I was a time traveler, so I had all the time in the world. I knew where they were and when, at least approximately. I could find them as soon as I was ready. I would stay the summer in my apartment, and I would study. I avoided becoming a powerful witch my whole life, but now I would focus every fiber of my soul on this one achievement. Then I would hunt them down.
I opened my eyes to the sunlight and slowly sat up. Zach snored from his bed, still exhausted, no doubt, from his party. The alarm clock next to his bed shone brightly in the dim light of the room—11:30. My head pounded as if a whole tree took root and now pushed all of its branches against my skull in an effort to escape. I had never experienced a hangover, but I didn’t think this was one. There must be a side effect to time travel. I pulled myself up using the window ledge for support and being careful not to wake Zach. I needed time to think if he decided to ask me questions about my whereabouts during the party or how I ended up on his floor, and thinking was certainly not something I was equipped to do with a tree trying to escape from my skull.
Grabbing my sandals, which were still slightly damp, I moved to the door and slowly turned the handle. Just this act, opening a door, filled my mind with images of flying pots and pans and entering a house that no longer existed. Actually, it hadn’t existed for fifteen years, but to me, it existed just last night. I took a deep breath and slid my body through the small opening I had created and into the hallway. Zach’s apartment was a mess. Red plastic cups littered the floor and an empty keg lay on its side in the kitchen. There were footprints on Zach’s couch and the whole place had the smell of spilled beer. Several exhausted partiers lay on the furniture and floor sleeping off the previous night.
If it had been any other day, I would have started cleaning up while Zach and his roommates slept, but this would have to be their problem. I had bigger problems of my own to worry about from here on out. I thought dimly of the few moments I spent in Zach’s party and wondered about the black aura I had either seen or imagined. If I had actually seen it, that meant there might be trouble closer than I thought, and when I started practicing my skills, I would need to be extra cautious. Mainly, I thought I had imagined it. Perhaps my psyche was trying to warn me of what was about to happen, of the trip I was about to take through time.
I carefully stepped over a girl sleeping on the floor and reached the bowl full of keys. After fishing through the bowl for a minute, I finally found my set and turned to leave. I had to step over the same girl to get to the front door, but when I looked down, her eyes were open, and she was staring at me with a seriousness I at first read as illness from the partying she had done. I tried to step back, to avoid the vomiting that would surely begin at any minute, but she grabbed my ankle and continued to stare at me.
“We need to talk,” she said sternly, and I knew instantly she was not drunk or even hung over.
“I really don’t have time. I’m in a hurry,” I muttered, jingling my keys and pulling my leg away.
“Then I’ll come with you,” she stated matter-of-factly as she stood up and brushed off her clothes. I recognized her as the girl who had spilled her drink on me last night. She had seemed quite intoxicated then, but if she had been, she certainly wasn’t feeling the effects of it now.
“Ugh. Listen, I have important things to do today, and like I said before, I really don’t have the time for whatever this is.” I stepped around her and unlocked the front door, but she followed me out into the hall. As I started down the steps, she stayed right at my heels.
“This
is important, too,” she told me at the bottom of the stairs, stepping in front of me so I had to look at her. She had a rose-colored aura—very pretty, but not very intimidating. Before she said anything else, I saw her lips begin to move without making a sound.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I tried to stop her from casting the spell, but it was too late. I could feel the pull of her spell and knew she had just bound herself to me. This was one of the spells my mother used when she found an Unknown to make sure the newly discovered witch stayed near her until a decision could be made. I knew the feel of the spell like an old habit. My aunt had used it many times in my childhood to keep me safe. She could reel it in so tight that we were like one person or let it go slack so I appeared to have free reign on the world while I explored the beach or a new park. I asked her where she learned the spell once, and she explained it was my mother who created it as a way to keep her Unknowns safe.
This girl knew my mother’s spell. If this had happened a week ago, it would have intrigued me enough to spend whatever time the girl wanted together so I could pick her brain and find out how she came about using a spell my mother created. However, it occurred to me my mother, in her mission, would have taught the spell to others, and they would have taught it to still more. Today, I had other issues pressing on my mental capacity. I did not have time for games. My headache already wore on my patience, so this girl did not stand a chance.
“I’ll give you a ride in my car, but then you are going to reverse that and leave me alone,” I told her as I turned and walked in the direction of my car. She followed a few feet behind me, but I could still feel the pull of the spell.
We approached my beat up Toyota, and I unlocked the doors. She slid into the passenger seat as I started the engine and shifted the car into reverse.
“Listen,” I said, as I put the car in drive. “I know you’re probably a Guardian. You know that binding spell, and you probably think I’m an Unknown. I have been living like one for so long, so it’s not surprising you would assume that. You may even have a gift for finding Unknowns, but you’re wrong about me. I’m not an Unknown. I have simply chosen to live my life this way.” The spell was still in tact and her lips weren’t moving in incantation or speech. I sighed and tried to get the tree in my head to retract its roots so I could think about how to get rid of her.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself,” I assured her.
“There is more to it than that, Jade,” she spoke with confidence, but it reminded me of another witch who used my name before he should have known it. “I know you’re not an Unknown,” she continued, “I also know who you are, who your aunt was and who your mother was. I’m not a Guardian, but I am training to be one. It’s not about you needing protection. We need you, but we had to wait until last night. You weren’t ready before that. We need your help.”
“What are you talking about? How do you know about last night?” I stared at her. This was just too much in a twenty-four hour period.
“Stop sign!” she shrieked.
“What?”
“Stop sign!” Now she was closing her eyes. I realized I wasn’t really paying attention to my driving anymore. I slammed on the brakes and listened as my car came to a squealing stop a bit past the red and white octagon. Someone swerved slightly and honked at me, but there weren’t any other cars. My headache plunged to another level, but I pushed the pain back. I could only deal with two things at a time. For now, those two things would have to be my driving and getting rid of this girl. She let out a long breath.
“Turn right,” she said.
“But my apartment is left,” I told her, even though I hadn’t really been planning to drive her all the way to my apartment.
“Turn right,” she said again. She really wasn’t being very accommodating or polite. I turned right anyway. At this point, my curiosity had the better of me. Besides, I still had to figure out how to get the family book before I could start my training. I hadn’t wanted it when Aunt Lynn discovered her prognosis. I didn’t know what she had done with it, but after last night, I now had an idea of where it might be. Still, I needed to travel before I could get it. This girl wasn’t going to release me any time soon, so I might as well go along and satisfy my curiosity.
“Okay, so I’ll do things your way, for now. Are you at least going to tell me who you are?” I grumbled as we headed away from Gainesville and into the middle of nowhere.
“I’m Stefanie,” she sounded all too happy to share with me. “My mother is a Guardian. We didn’t know when you would time travel for the first time, but we knew it would be sometime soon. It’s been my job to keep an eye on you. Plus, we had a tracking spell on you. As soon as you disappeared, we knew it was time. I just happened to be nearby when it happened. Now you know you are a time traveler and a firestarter; we hoped you would be ready to come out of hiding. I mean, jeez, you’ve been in hiding your whole life! That can’t have been fun. You’ve got to be itching to become a Guardian.”
She had to stop to take a breath. I stared at her again. Tracking me? Me, wanting to become a Guardian? What was she thinking? She and her mother and whoever else she meant when she said “we” did not really know as much about me as they thought. Becoming a Guardian had never been on my to-do list. Even knowing the truth about the night my mother died, I still did not want to become a Guardian.
“Uh, watch the road, okay?” Stefanie stammered, “If you’re not going to pay attention to where we’re going, you’re gonna have to let me drive.”
“Not a chance,” I grumbled at her, “of you driving or of me becoming a Guardian.”
I kept my eyes on the road this time, but I was sure Stefanie’s eyes were popping out of their sockets about now. She expected me to be excited and ready to sign up like a dumb recruit who signed up for the reserves without realizing there was a war going on and that he would be shipped off within days of completing his training. I certainly wasn’t that dumb. I had no illusions the war my mother had been fighting had died with her. We wouldn’t have been in hiding all these years if that war wasn’t still going on. I just wasn’t a player in any of those battles, and I had no intention of thrusting myself back into the middle of it. The only battle I wanted to fight was waiting for me in Salem hundreds of years ago. No way was I telling her that, though.
“What do you mean you don’t want to be a Guardian!?” Stefanie screamed at me. “We’ve been waiting all this time for you to join us and help win this fight against the Shadow Rulers and the Hunters, and you don’t want to join? Where’s your sense of responsibility? Where’s your sense of loyalty? Don’t you care about what your mother died for?”
That was more than I could take in one twenty-four hour period. I slammed the brakes, and the car skidded noisily, stopping just a bit off the road into the dirt. A car behind us honked and sped past.
“That’s enough. You do not have the right to lecture me about responsibility or loyalty, and you certainly do not know me well enough to bring up my mother! Especially today. If you know so much about me and you know I’m a time traveler, where the hell do you think I just came from? You have no idea the sacrifices I’ve already made.” I paused to catch my breath. Stefanie stared at me. She looked like she might be forming an apology, but I didn’t really care to hear it.
“I have my own agenda now,” I continued, “so are you going to release me from this spell or do I still have to go and meet your little group of Guardians?”
“I’m sorry,” Stefanie managed, “I was just surprised…”
“I don’t care,” I snapped back, “Just answer my question so we can either end this or get on with it.”
“I can’t release you yet. You have to come meet them,” she whispered.
“Fine. The only conversation I want to have until then is you giving me directions.” If the circumstances had been different, I would have felt guilty for putting her in her place, but I honestly didn’t feel a twinge of remorse. It was
bad enough I had to plan revenge on two Shadow Rulers, but now I had to deal with a misguided group of Guardians who for some reason had put their hopes in me. So, I had two rare gifts—three if you counted reading auras, but they didn’t know about that one. Big deal. Maybe that made me special in their books, but I had no interest in their war. Other than avenging my mother, it had nothing to do with me. Once I completed that act, I would bow out of my identity as a witch forever. Maybe I could contract my abilities and gifts over to some Guardian and walk away a normal college student. Well, as normal as a girl who had been abandoned once and orphaned twice could be.
“Turn left at the light,” Stefanie muttered, pointing to a single blinking caution light hanging in an intersection ahead. We drove in silence for the next twenty minutes before she told me to turn left again. Finally, we turned right onto a private dirt road. My Toyota tossed us around like we were popcorn someone was shaking in a microwave bag. Ruts, bumps, and divots covered the path, and I swerved once for a tree jutting out into the path and a second time for a raccoon family just finishing their journey across the makeshift road. I wanted to ask when we would reach our destination, but my anger at Stefanie’s earlier comments hadn’t subsided.
Eventually, the car crept out into a clearing in front of a wood-frame, two-story house that looked worthy of a Harry Potter film. Ironic, since it served as a meeting place, maybe even a hideout, for a group of real witches. I slowed the car and pulled next to what looked like a shiny black mustang. However, when I let my fingers run along its smooth metallic side, I felt the decay and rust of a much older car. I jumped back with a start, and Stefanie stifled a small giggle.
“Appearances can be deceiving,” she said as I watched her recite an incantation with familiar ease. The car shifted before my eyes and became an old, rusty Chevy. My aunt never cast a spell like that. It seemed oddly self-serving and thrilling at the same time. An aspect of magic I had never explored. I felt a little twinge of longing for what I would eventually be giving up, but I remained resolute. I would not help these witches. I would avenge my mother. Then I would give up being a witch. Forever.
Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series) Page 7